Sketches of the New Church in America on a background of civic and social life : drawn from faded manuscript, printed record, and living reminiscence

Sketches of the New Church
In America

EDNAHC. SILVER

929.102

N46s
1564460

GENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01177 0713

y,aUf4^-'

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Ednah C. Silver in 1910

Sketches of the New Church
in America

Background of Civic and
Social Life

Drawn from

Faded Manuscript, Printed Record, and

Living Reminiscence

By Ednah C. Silver

Published by
The Massachusetts New Church Union
134 Bowdoin Street
Boston

CopjTight, 1920, by Ednah C. Silver

1564460

Dedicated to

REV. JULIAN K. SMYTH

the richly endowed exponent
of our beautiful Faith

FOREWORD

'T^HIS book is quite as much a character-study as a record
of facts. It is devoted to those who have gone before,
and to the message that enriched their lives. No one who
is still living here is admitted to these pages except to illus-
trate a movement, or to round out a situation; or — more
important — to hold a lamp that it may throw light on a
portrait. An obvious exception to this rule is made in favor
of the present writer, who has drawn extensively on her
memory-records, having found that grown people are very
like children: a story is often more real to them if the
narrator can say, I have seen and heard. It might be said in
passing, that among the many persons whose names appear
in the book, she has knoiv two hundred.

To her, the opening date, 1784, is in no degree remote,
but, on the contrary, very living and real: because at that
very time there was a little tivo-year-old Huguenot boy named
Daniel playing in a Baltimore nursery who lived to be ninety-
five, and who maintained, during the last nineteen years of
his life, a warm friendship with the Silver household. And
there was a little girl named Margaret, who, in 1784, was a
nine-year-old maiden in an English boarding school. She
lived to be ninety-three, and also came within the present
writer's ken. The eighteenth and the twentieth centuries
have shaken hands.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

JAMES GLEN, FIRST TORCHBEARER FOR THE NEW
CHURCH TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 1

Glimpses of prominent public men in 1784 in the
thirteen loosely joined American States, and the ec-
clesiastical, social and financial conditions when Glen
came. His education in Scotland, his part in organiz-
ing the New Church in England, his Philadelphia lec-
tures, his life in Demerara (British Guiana) and the
religious, industrial, and topographical features of the
land.

CHAPTER n

PHILADELPHIA AS A RADIATING CENTER FOR THE
NEW CHURCH 15

Result of Glen's visit. Sketches of Messrs. Bailey,
Freneau, Eckstein, James, Kinmont, Thuun, Young,
Collin, Duche, Schlatter, Chauvenet, Lammot, and

othe

rs.

CHAPTER HI

BALTIMORE, THE HOME OF MANY NEW CHURCH
BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA 39

1792, First organized Society for worship.

1792, First American edition of English Liturgy.

1798, First ordination into New-Church ministry.

1800, First House of Worship dedicated.

1801, First religious periodical.

Sketches of John Hargrove, Adam Fonerden, Dr. John
Fonerden, and others.

CHAPTER IV

JONATHAN CHAPMAN, THE PICTURESQUE SOWER

OF TWOFOLD SEED 47

Career and character of " Johnny Appleseed ", as
orchardist, peripatetic New-Church library, and live
Evangelist.

CHAPTER V

JOSEPH HILLER, THE EARLIEST NEWCHURCHMAN IN
NEW ENGLAND 52

His life in Salem, and discovery of our faith. Devotion
of his daughter, Margaret Hiller Prescott, to the
Church; her little book, Religion and Philosophy
United. Joseph Hiller's New-Church descendants to
the sixth generation.

CHAPTER VI

THE RAINBOW-HUED STORY OF MARGARET GARY . 58

Her religious ancestry, her picturesque life in the West
Indies and London. Home in Massachusetts, and dis-
covery of the New Church in 1796. The next chapter
records her charter membership in the Boston Society
and her devotion to its interests.

CHAPTER VII
THOMAS WORCESTER AND THE TREASURE-TROVE
OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 64

Mr. Worcester's serious-minded ancestry in which ec-
clesiastics abound. Conditions at Harvard in 1814-18:
its faculty, religious freedom, and amusements. Mr.
Worcester's discovery among Harvard's 50,000 library
books of Hill's gift of the Arcana, sleeping the sleep
of oblivion, and covered with the dust of neglect.
Formation of the Boston Society under him in 1818,
and its striking growth. His marriage and the excel-
lence of his parishoners. Places of worship, and dedi-
cation of the Bowdoin Street Church edifice in 1845;
devotional quality of its music. Mr. Worcester's
sermons and long pastorate. His wide-spread influence
in the Church at large. Sketches of his children and
description of other lines of New-Church Worcesters.

CHAPTER Vni

ABIEL SILVER, AND THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE . . 128

His boyhood, betrothal, and marriage in New Hamp-
shire; his early life on the banks of the St. Lawrence;
his migration to Michigan in 1831, the varied condition
of the territory, and his mercantile and public life. His
discovery of the New Church through Edwin Burnham

in 1839; his baptism by Rev. George Field in 1844; his
ordination by Rev. Thomas Worcester at Philadelphia
in 1849; his consecration as ordaining minister by Rev.
Thomas Worcester at Chicago in 1865. His parishes
in Contoocook, New Hampshire, Wilmington, Delaware,
in New York, in Salem, and in Roxbury, Mass.

CHAPTER IX
THE PERSONNEL OF THE NEW CHURCH * .... 217
Thirty-two sketches, thirty from life, of men and women
of varying personality, attracted to the New Church,
i. Law: Chief Justice Edward W. Gilpin of Delaware, Chief
Justice Albert Mason of Massachusetts, and lawyer .Albert W.
Paine of the Bangor Bar.

ii. Medicine: Doctors August Negendank and John Ellis,
iii. Education: Professors Truman H. Safford, Theophilus Par-
sons, Rudolph L. Tafel, Thomas xMoses, Timothy O. Paine, Mar-
shall Freeman Josselyn, Sarah Alice Worcester; Abby M.
McClean in private school, and Anna L. Page in kindergarten,
iv. Music: George James Webb, and William Mason.
V. An: Daniel H. Biirnham, architecture, and Adelia Gates,
flower painting.

vi. Authorship: John Bigelow, Howard Pyle, and Adeline Knapp.
vii. Editorship: William Cooper Howells (father of the novelist),
editor of the New-Church periodical, The Retina.
Horace P. Chandler, editor of Lovers' Year Book, Every Other
Saturday, and Mariners' Advocate.

viii. Altruism: Maria Moulton, Sir Francis Joseph Campbell,
and Thomas Reeves, workers for the blind. Also a sketch of
Helen Keller.

ix. Travel-hostess: Mrs. Henry P. Nichols.

X. Men of affairs: Robert L. Smith, importer; Simon H. Greene,
manufacturer.

xi. Social Life: Mrs. .\lfred du Pont (Margaretta Lammot),
Mrs. Henry G. Thompson (Louisa Barnard), Miss Anna La
Motte, and Mrs. J. Kennedy Smyth (Julia Ogden).

CHAPTER X

VIRGINIA AND THE NEW CHURCH 289

The Fairfaxes of Virginia.
The Carters of Virginia.
The Cabells of Virginia.
The Campbells of Virginia.
The Earlys of Virginia.
The Mosbys of Virginia.
The Greenways of Virginia.
The Hites of Virginia.

* The story of several persons worthy a place in this list fits in elsewhere in
this book.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing

Ednah C. Silver Frontispiece

Old Swedes' Church, Wilmington, Delaware 2

Boston Society's Place of Worship in Phillips Place ... 78

Professor Theophilus Parsons of Harvard 78

Rear view of Audience of Boston Society Chiu-ch of the

New Jerusalem 79

Head of Christ by Hiram Powers 110

Bust of Rev. Thomas Worcester by Powers Ill

Head from statue of " The Greek Slave " 114

" Faith " by Powers 114

Model by Powers of his Httle child's hand 115

Hiram Powers of Florence, Italy 115

Interior of San Francisco Church erected under Rev. Joseph

Worcester 126

Rev. Noah Worcester 127

Rev. Thomas Worcester 127

Rev. John Worcester 127

Rev. William L. Worcester 127

Judge Digby V. Bell 156

Wilham Bell, son of Digby 156

Phoenix Cottage, the Abiel Silver home in Michigan .... 168

Rev. George Field 169

Mrs. Susan M. H. Dorr 169

Captain Paul R. George 174

Walter Scott Davis 175

Mr. Daniel Lammot \

Mrs. Daniel Lammot 1

Mrs. Mary Lammot Hounsfield /

Mrs. Eleanor Lammot Gilpin ( Between

Mr. Dan Lammot / pp. 184, 185

Major Robert La Motte I

Col. William A. La Motte |

Brigadier-General Charles Eugene La Motte /

Rev. John C. Ager 186

Rev. Lewis P. Mercer 186

J. K. Hoyt of New York 192

Robert L. Smith of New York 192

" The Apostle Peter's Deliverance from Prison," by Cephas

G. Thompson 193

Cephas Giovanni Thompson 193

One of the treasures in Miss Silver's New York Sunday

School class 194

Another treasure in Miss Silver's class 194

Dr. S. M. Gate of Salem 198

Dr. John T. Harris of Roxbury . 198

Mrs. William F. Jackson 204

Mrs. Abiel Silver 204

Glimpse of Roxbury Church of the New Jerusalem .... 205

Lancaster home of Mrs. Mary G. Chandler Ware .... 208

Roxbury home of Abiel Silver family 209

Rev. Abiel Silver \

Monsieur Edouard de Chazal of Mauritius . / R t n

Rev. Julian K. Smyth in 1882 .....) ^^^,,

Rev. Julian K. Smyth in 1899 I PP' ^^^' ^^^

Ednah C. Silver in 1877 )

Chief-Justice Albert Mason of Massachusetts 218

A Corner of the Old Historic Parlor in the Worcester House

atHollis 238

Colonial home of Anna Page 244

Miss Caroline, younger daughter of George James Webb . 245

Daniel H. Rurnham 248

Mrs. Edwin Rurnham 249

Mr. Henry P. Nichols 274

Mrs. Hemy P. Nichols 275

Glimpse of garden and rear of house at Goodstay 282

Mrs. Alfred du Pont of Goodstay 283

Corner of front porch at Goodstay 283

Mr. Henry G. Thompson 284

Mrs. Henry G. Thompson 285

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt 286

Mrs. Julia Ogden Smyth of New York 287

Mrs. Lucy Lazelle Hobart of Roston 287

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age.

And apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out.

— Job, viii, 8.

JAMES GLEN: First Torchbearer for the New
Church to the Western Hemisphere. Current conditions
in the late eighteenth century.

N a summer day in the year 1784 James Glen
might have been seen approaching Philadelphia,
where he was to give the first public proclamation
of the truths of the New Jerusalem to the western
world. What manner of man was James Glen, and what
manner of folk were we? His native land was one of small
streams to be made famous by Robert Burns — the Doon
and the Ayr, the Nith and the Tay; as he sailed up the broad
Delaware was he impressed, by contrast, with its stately
majesty — a majesty always emphasized anew to some of us
at each fresh sight of it? Our river had fine commercial
possibilities, but no poetic bard; it had, however, an associ-
ation with war, — General Washington having strategically
crossed it in 1777, thereby giving heart to the Colonial cause.
How did James Glen as a British subject regard our Com-
mander-in-chief? Did he pronounce him an archrebel, or
a friend to lovers of liberty? Did he realize that Washington
had been fighting the Englishman's battles for representative
government?

Mr. Glen had discovered the Writings of Swedenborg and
had accepted their message: did he know that his boat was
traversing territory settled by Swedes; territory over which
Swedenborg's father formerly presided as a nonresident

2' SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

bishop, by appointment of his king, Charles XII? As Glen
sailed near Wilmington, Delaware, did he know that one of its
treasures was the fine Old Swedes' Church dedicated in 1699;
and that its archives contained beautiful pastoral letters from
the good bishop?

Should Mr. Glen, on his arrival at Philadelphia, wish to
visit our Continental Congress, he would learn that that body,
lacking means of defence, had been driven out by a handful
of unpaid mutinous soldiers, had been recently sheltered
under the Presbyterian wings of the College of New Jersey,
(Princeton), and was now still farther afield. Did our New-
Church visitor smile on us with sympathetic pity for our
ignominious position? We were as feeble in finance as we
were in arms. Was Mr. Glen sorry to see our paper currency
so near zero, and his British gold at so enormous a
premium?*

Mr. Glen was familiar with countries whose hoary history
was projected on a background of traditions still more
ancient; would he care for our young nation which was only
in the making, which had in 1784, no fixed capital, no strong
central government, no Federal Constitution, no president,
no national hymn, and no decisive name? We had, thanks
to George Washington and Betsy Ross, our starry banner
which had triumphantly defied the British government. The
ocean was still a broad gulf of separation, although the last
growling echo of British and Colonial cannon had died away,
and our returned soldiers had hung their flintlock muskets
above the fireplace. But it is a far cry from George III to
George V; and how little could Glen foresee that, on the
Fourth of July, 1918, our Old Glory would float over the
House of Parliament by command of George V himself! And
that the Prince of Wales in 1919 would honor Washington's
tomb! We still had annoying home tariff wars between
states and no adequate laws to meet them. Would our civic

* Mrs. John Adams writes as early as June, 1779: "Linens are sold at twenty
dollars per yard, the most ordinary sort of calico at thirty or forty, broadcloths
at forty pounds per yard." And William Pynchon's diary records at Salem,
Massachusetts, on June 2, 1781 : "The marketmen refuse bills of the old
emission for provisions, the jurymen refused it at the Maritime Court, the judges
declined to take it, yet this is our currency established by law! O Congress!
legislators! money-makers aU! What ails you? "

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SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 3

experimenters, our nation builders, be in a frame of mind
to listen to Glen's spiritual message?

Where, in the meantime, were our public men? General
Washington, after giving eight years of gratuitous military-
service, had resigned his commission in the army, delivered
up his sword to Congress, and returned to his beloved Mount
Vernon. His fifty-two years were beginning to tell on him;
and, on assuming spectacles for a public address, he had said,
half playfully: " I have grown gray in your service, and now
I find myself growing blind. "

Benjamin Franklin was seventy-eight. His persuasive
speech had long since won over as a bride the girl who had
ridiculed his early rusticity, his effective kite had won over
the lightning, his able diplomacy had won distinction abroad,
his self-training and native genius had won academic degrees
from Harvard, Yale and Oxford; he had been crowned at the*
Court of Versailles by a French duchess; he was now in Paris,
where, to please King Louis XVI, he was investigating, in
the intervals of diplomacy, the claims of Mesmer and som-
nambulism. Alexander Hamilton was a lawyer of twenty-
seven, his brilliant career as a political writer in The
Federalist and as a great financier, being still in the future.
Thomas Jefferson stood at forty-one, with the great Decla-
ration behind him, and the Louisiana Purchase still to come;
already dreaming of his great work in founding the Uni-
versity of Virginia. Aaron Burr was twenty-eight, and the
keen-sighted Washington already distrusted him. Benedict
Arnold was forty-three; this prince of black traitors was
residing in England, but could not live down his obloquy.
Paul Jones at thirty-seven had already won a sword of honor
from Louis XVI and a medal from our Continental Congress.
This intrepid captor of the Serapis was now a drawing-room
knight and ladies' man in Paris. In 1784, Mrs. John Adams
describes him after this manner:

" I should sooner think of wrapping him up in cotton wool
and putting him in my pocket than of sending him to contend

with cannon balls but under all this appearance

of softness he is bold, enterprising, ambitious, and active. "

Our supreme orator, Patrick Henry, whose fiery con-

4 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

victions, titanic courage, electrifying eloquence, and moral
nerve had made him a factor in the Revolution was now, at
forty-eight, serving as governor of Virginia. James Madison
was a stately, well-bred bachelor of thirty-three, with a head
so capacious that it held Latin, Greek, French, and Italian,
and much material for the coming Federal Constitution. He
had been unconsciously waiting for little Dolly Payne to
grow up and be his wife, and he discovered and married her
in 1794, that he might bring her to his Virginia ancestral
three thousand acres, where his mansion was set amid silver
pines, where roses and jessamines clambered over the veranda,
and the garden was gay with " a gorgeous tangle of scarlet
and yellow vines." Dolly is described at twenty-two as "a
broidered and frilled little Quakeress with a strain of Irish
blood which gave her vivacious wit and good-nature." *
Later she poured coffee for many years at the White House,
although the coffee pot received a severe jar on August 24,
1814.

Paul Revere was no longer producing graceful silver table
ware, but was, at forty-nine, on the banks of the Neponset
casting church bells in the cause of religion. John Adams,
also forty-nine, was in Holland, negotiating in desperate
terms a loan for his country; and in commercial treaties we
were " disdainfully asked whether European powers were
expected to deal with thirteen governments, or one." Mrs.
John Adams was in Paris, and her letters give vivacious and
incisive pictures of men and manners. Transferred from
rural little Braintree to the tropical luxuriance of the Bourbon
regime, she preserved her unworldliness as became a minis-
ter's daughter. She never forgot her republicanism, and
showed her colors spiritedly. At Braintree she had written
abroad that,

" The Revolutionary flame is kindled, and, like lightning,
it catches from soul to soul."

And her admiring husband wrote in reply to the wife who
was both idealistic and practical-minded:

* A charming and authentic book on social life at this period is entitled Our
Early Presidents, their Wives and Children by Harriet Taylor Upton, 1890,
D. Lothrop Co.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 5

" Your sentiments of the duties we owe our country are

such as become the best of women I think you

shine as a stateswoman of late, as well as a farmeress."

John Quincy Adams, now seventeen, was to spend twenty
years abroad in consular^ diplomatic, and other service, fitting
him to an extraordinary degree in international statecraft
for the United States Presidency.

Lafayette, whose heart was larger than France, and whose
democracy neutralized his blue blood, had thrown away his
title of marquis among other insignia of rank submerged by
the French Revolution, but had retained the title of general,
given him when Washington, with wise diplomacy, had pro-
moted him over the heads of American officers in our Revo-
lution. In the same year of Glen's visit, Lafayette was at
Mount Vernon, admiring proud little Nellie Custis, with her
new thousand-dollar harpsichord and her new bandoria; and
admiring her brother still more, the lad who was to be the
head of the Arlington Mansion, and the father-in-law of Gen.
Robert E, Lee. George Washington Custis was now four
years old and Lafayette describes him thus:

" A very little gentleman with a feather in his hat."

Lafayette also had a child named George Washington, and
we saw in Paris in 1900 the intertwined flags of France and
the United States floating over the graves of father and son.

Let us return from this glimpse of social life and observe
the religious training of eighteenth-century young people.
The Rev. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale, writes as follows:

" My daughter Ruth, for fourteen years beginning in 1775,
had read her Bible fourteen times through; and Eliza and
Emilia had done as well in proportion to their years. "

For the young Yale students, attendance at daily prayers,
morning and evening, was required, the exposition of the
Confession of Faith on Saturday evening, and not infre-
quently "five hours in chapel on Lord's Day." Under-
graduates must " uncover within ten rods of the person of the
president, eight rods of the professor, and five rods of the
tutor." This rigid pressure brought to bear upon the lively
animal spirits incident to youth produced the inevitable re-
action, as recorded by Mr. Stiles: " An hundred and fifty or an

6 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

hundred and eighty Young Gentlemen Students is a Bundle
of Wild Fire not easily controlled and governed, and at the
best the Diadem of a President is a Crown of Thorns." *

John Quincy Adams's religious nature was not neglected.
In 1782, when a lad of fifteen doing secretarial work
abroad, his father's letter to him shows the seriousness of the
New England mind :

" Your studies I doubt not you pursue, because I know you
to be a studious youth, but above all, preserve a sacred regard
to your own honor and reputation. Your morals are worth
all the sciences. Your conscience is the minister plenipoten-
tiary of God Almighty in your breast. See to it that this
minister never negotiates in vain. Attend to him in opposi-
tion to all other courts in the world. So charges your
affectionate father, J. Adams. "

Would the Churches listen to James Glen's spiritual mes-
sage when they were so preoccupied in disentangling them-
selves from the State? For the political break with England
had brought about ecclestiastical complications, and disestab-
lishment was in the air. South Carolina, where Episco-
palianism was "rooted in the soil," easily detached the
Church from England. Her high-minded clergy had been
as a rule unswerving patriots, and were elected at home.
Virginia's clergy were appointed by the crown, and would
naturally enjoy having George III as the visible head of the
Church. But she had a large Presbyterian population led by
ministers of " learning and dialectic skill," who successfully
protested against the voice of civil magistrates in matters of
religion; and they found powerful allies in broad-minded
Episcopalians like Jefferson, Madison, and Mason. John
Fiske further tells us that New Jersey and North Carolina
unwillingly endured state Anglicanism ; Georgia, turbulent in
spirit, was even less gracious; and New York accepted it
"with languid acquiescence." A goodly portion of the
people in Maryland being, in 1784, strongly Roman Catholic,
successfully petitioned the pope to establish a hierarchy
empowered directly from Rome.

Roger Williams emphasized successfully for Rhode Island

* From the Neiv England Magazine, April, 1909, Boston.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 7

the sharp differentiation which should exist between Church
and State. Pennsylvania had nothing to undo, thanks to
William Penn's broad vision and love of religious freedom.
Massachusetts, the most jealous of coercion among all
England's thirteen children, established a state Church of her
own — Orthodox Congregationalism — and maintained her
civic hold on it into the nineteenth century. New Hampshire
and Connecticut anticipated her in separating their Puritan
religion from the State. In 1784, the very year of Glen's
visit, Samuel Seabury, after exceedingly interesting ecclesi-
astical and political complications, was consecrated as the
first American Episcopal bishop, and became " a great
organizer and strict Churchman " ; and Francis Asbury,
through Wesley's independent action, became the first Ameri-
can Methodist bishop, increasing the membership in thirty-two
years from 300 converts to 214,000 members {Encyclopaedia
Britannica) .

Among a people of undefined nationality, among a people
of ecclesiastical unrest, among a people verging on doctrinal
revolt, came James Glen with his message. Conditions were
not wholly unfavorable to him, as they were tending toward
increased political and religious liberty.

Swedenborg, speaking of the better among the English in
the other world, declares that they are in the center of aU
Christians, because they have interior intellectual light; they
acquire it from their freedom to speak and to write, and
thus to think. With others, who are not in such liberty, that
light is wasted because it has no outlet {True Christian
Religion, No. 807).

We can answer the question, " What manner of folk were
we? " But for James Glen's portrait we have so far con-
structed an easel made chiefly of interrogation points, asking
what he might, or did, feel, and think, and do; and we will
now endeavor to place on this easel a sketch of him from
authentic data.

James Glen came on a Bible mission, to save God's Word
by upholding its interior symbolic claim. He advertised his
coming lectures in three Philadelphia papers, including
Francis Bailey's Freeman s Journal. The advertisement is

8 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

too long to quote,* but therein Mr. Glen defines the Science of
Correspondences in which the Holy Scriptures are written, as
the relation of things of earth to higher things, whereby
objects in this world become types or symbols of things of
the spirit, and he continues:

"The honourable Emanuel Swedenborg, the wonderful
restorer of this long lost secret, thro the Divine Mercy, for
the last twenty-nine years of his life had the most free and
open Intercourse with Spirits and Angels and was thus taught
this Science of Heaven. From his invaluable Writings, and
Conversations with gentlemen who have studied them, the
Discourser hopes to convey some Idea and Taste of this
Science to the wise and to the good of every denomination. "

Mr. Glen's first lecture was on June 5, 1784, at Bell's
bookstore, near St. Paul's Church, on Third Street, Phila-
delphia. And many of us saw, in 1917, the unveiling of a
bronze tablet on that building commemorating the significant
eighteenth-century event.

For James Glen's early and latter days we draw great
value from the forty pages of material carefully gleaned by
Mr. Charles Higham of London in the New-Church Review
for October, 1912, pp. 532-572. Glen was born at Glas-
gow, Scotland, about the year 1750. At twelve years of age
he entered a three-century-old grammar school in whose
archives the following letter from Glen, written long after,
has been discovered:

"I am," says he, "a merchant by profession; in politics,
I am for peace, hating the very name of war; in religion, I
have professed the tenets of Emanuel Swedenborg for twenty-
one years, and will be glad to hear if there be any of that
persuasion in Glasgow, and would most earnestly recommend
the works of that great man to your particular attention and
candid perusal."

In 1783 Mr. Hindmarsh and Mr. James Glen met for the
first time; and the former tells us in his Rise and Progress
of the Neiv Jerusalem Church, p. 17, how he heard from the
Scotchman's own lips his discovery of Swedenborg. Mr.

* For the complete advertisement, turn to vol. i, p. 70 in The New churchman,
Philadelphia, January, 1841.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 9

Glen was on the ocean, on his voyage to England from his
plantation in South America :

" The captain of the vessel in which he was sailing, after
many conversations with Mr. Glen, whom he found to be a
person of literary habits and liberal sentiments, in a great
measure free from the influence of religious prejudices, told
him that he was in possession of a book, written in the Latin
language by a very extraordinary man, which he thought
would prove acceptable to him; whereupon he presented him
with a copy of the Latin work De Coelo et Inferno (the
Treatise on Heaven and Hell) . As soon as Mr. Glen had read
the work and well considered its contents, he was all astonish-
ment, first, at the nature of the information which that book
conveys; and in the next place, at the goodness of the Divine
Providence which had so unexpectedly brought him into such
a peculiar situation, that while sailing on the surface of the
great deep, of an abyss of water beneath him, his eyes were
opened to behold an abyss of divine truths above and around
him. That day Mr. Glen declared to be the happiest day of
his life, which thus brought to his view the glories of the
heavenly state, and the stupendous realities of the eternal
world."

After recording preliminary movements, Mr. Hindmarsh,
on pp. 57, 58, writes of a " select meeting " of Members of
the New Church on July 29, 1784, with thirteen present, the
name of James Glen leading the list. " The Lord's Prayer
was read, and No. 625 of the Universal Theology (True
Christian Religion) being the Glorification of the New
Heavens for the Lord's Second Advent. A Paper drawn up
by Mr. Glen, containing general principles of the New
Church, was also read and with some alterations and ad-
ditions unanimously approved of." James Glen's name also
leads the list of persons assembled in London on July 31,
1787, for the formation, under the initiative of Robert Hind-
marsh, of the first Society of the New Church on earth, and
for participation in the Holy Supper.

James Glen had previously, as recorded, proclaimed the
New-Church message in Philadelphia; and we will now follow
him to his South American plantation, where with occasional

10 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

visits to London he spent his -remaining days from 1771 to
1814.

What manner of country was Demerara?

Demerara is the name of a river and of the province
watered by it which is now called British Guiana. Its man-
ners, customs, and laws have been admirably described by
Bolingbroke,* a sojourner there at the same time with Glen
from 1799 to 1806. The author writes with an almost
official texactness and with the eye for pictorial detail of a
born observer. The book is accessible, is eight by ten inches
in size, with sumptuous margins, fine paper, clear type, and an
excellent map. The writer was an articled clerk for a
commercial house in Demerara, received a large salary, and
traveled extensively for seven years over the territory. He
sailed from Liverpool on Christmas, 1798, and after seven
weeks he sighted the land of expectancy. The low and
perfectly flat coast was not inspiring to a young man with
ideals in his head, the sand bar which bade the boat wait for
high tide checked his enthusiasm, the soundings of lead
brought up mud, the seaman finally landed near Fort William
Frederick where eighteen heavy pieces of cannon were
mounted. The province has been repeatedly under alternate
Dutch and British rule, the latter prevailing during the stay
of Bolingbroke. Landing at Stabroek, now called George-
town, at the mouth of Rio Demerara, he found himself
surrounded by native blacks, yellows, and tawnies, vocifer-
ating their wares in a jargon half English and half Dutch.
The two-story houses with colonnaded porticoes and balconies
were shaded by projecting eaves and were roofed with red
shingles resembling mahogany. The windows without glass
were covered with Venetian blinds furnishing a secluded out-
look for the ladies. Rooms projected in all directions in
order to catch every draft and the ground plan of the
dwellings was mostly in the shape of a cross.

Mr. Bolingbroke was met by a handsome tent-boat rowed

* A Voyage to the Demerary, containing a statistical account of the settlements
there, and of those on the Essequibo, the Berbice, and other contiguous rivers
of Guiana; 400 pp. By Henry Bolingbroke, Esq., of Norwich, Deputy Vendue
Master at Surinham. London, printed for Richard Phillips, No. 6, Bridge
Street, 1807.

•SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 11

by six negroes, and was conducted to his employer's home
which he was to share. The dinner-table was cosmopolitan:
French soup, Dutch salted ling, English beef, Muscovy ducks,
Italian salad, and native fruits — guavas, pineapples,
oranges, shaddocks, and avoiras. The household establish-
ment consisted of eight male and two female negro servants,
who were summoned by a whistle instead of a bell.

As Mr. Glen had already carried his spiritual light to
Demerara, it would be interesting to know the state of
religion there. Bolingbroke says of it in 1799-1806, " that
religious liberty prevailed, that ecclesiastical feuds were un-
known, that Protestant forms of worship were found on the
north-eastern Atlantic coast; that heathenism, not yet ad-
vanced to idolatry, existed in central Guiana where the
elements of nature were treated with fear and propitiatory
worship. The Roman Catholic religion flourished in the
western and southern borders. In the region of Paramaribo
six German missionaries called Hernbooters or Moravians
liad a very numerous and a very orderly audience in the
negro chapel. The leaders had translated the Bible and a
book of hymns into the talkee-talkee, or negro language"
(pp. 340, 341, 371),

Let us start from the mouth of the Demerara two miles
wide and sail up the river towards Glen's home, seeing every-
thing through Bolingbroke's eyes. His tent-boat is one of a
kind described on page 28:

" They are generally from twenty to thirty feet long, and
wide in proportion ; they are built very sharp for the purpose
of sailing or rowing fast. About six or eight feet of the stem
are occupied by the tent, in the inside of which are blinds to
let down as occasion requires. A cockpit is behind for the
cockswain to steer in. He is styled captain, and has entire
command of the boat. The negroes, while pulling, took off
their hats and jackets; they appeared quite merry and sang
all the way. The chorus of their principal song was,

Good neger make good massa."

As Mr. Glen owned a plantation in Demerara, we will
observe this kind of property as we sail southward.

12 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

" Shortly, the river flows perfectly straight for ten miles to
Diamond Point. The scenery is picturesque and uniform.
The plantations on either side are surveyed and laid out in
grants or allotments, of five hundred acres, by the Dutch
West India Company. They have a frontage of one hundred
roods, and a depth of seven hundred and fifty. A ditch ex-
tends around four sides to effect drainage if the land is un-*
duly wet, or to shield against inundation from the spring
tides, making each plantation an island, and demanding a
bridge on each side which must be painted white that it may
be discerned at night. Up these trenches or canals go punts
or flat-bottomed boats to carry off" for sale the products of
the estate; they will each carry twenty hogsheads of sugar
with facility. Coffee and plantain are the other prominent
products in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
dwelling house is close to the river with a wharf, or landing
place, in front. The wheels of the mills turn by wind, water,
or cattle power" (pp. 29-31). "At the aristocratic Rey-
nestein estate which we pass, there is a walk of fruit trees
nearly a mile long consisting of orange, lime, lemon, mammy-
apple, sour sop, cocoanut, and wild cherry trees."

Continuing up the river in Mr. Bolingbroke's boat we
observe that civilization diminishes and life grows simpler
and wilder. After perhaps forty miles we reach Miribi
Creek which, on the right, enters the Demerara, and on this
creek James Glen lived as a hermit although Bolingbroke
does not mention him. We will now turn our ear to Mr.
Edmonstone who, in 1808, described Glen, his neighbor, as
follows:

" He is a native of Glasgow, in Scotland, and came to this
colony many years ago as mate in a merchant ship. He was
then a stout young man not more than twenty years of age
and full of enterprise and speculation. The novelty and
beauty of the New World delighted him and the lovely scenes
of nature in this country bent his mind on settling among
them. He visited most of the plantations which then existed
and, gaining knowledge in a small way from his observations
and questions, he at length determined to apply to the prin-
cipal owner of this colony — for at that time no governor

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 13

was appointed from Holland — and a good tract of land was
allotted for him. ... In seven years he was seated on his
own plantation in the midst of fine crops which filled his
pockets with money and with negroes enough to work the
property. At the end of twenty years he was considered
a man well to do in the world" {Review, pp. 538, 539).
But financial reverses came.

Thanks to the Review, pp. 544-546, we have another
glimpse of Mr. Glen through a book, The Life and Labours
of John Wray. The author was a Dissenter, and a Pioneer
Missionary sent out from London. In his diary he designates
old Mr. Glen as the " Swedenborgian Hermit," and he visited
him on March 15, 1813. He found him humbly clad, stand-
ing at the door of his hut. We now take up his narrative:

" We sat down in the shade, under a large silk-cotton tree,
and conversed some time on religious subjects. Saying he
was much pleased with the missionary and Bible Reports
I had sent him, he told me to read the Bible by Swedenborg's
works. After some conversation, he said, 'Do you read
Greek? ' ' A little, sir,' I replied, ' but only the New Testa-
ment.' He said, ' I read that only. Have you got a Greek
Testament? ' ' Yes, sir, I have three.' ' Do you read Hebrew? '
'Yes.' 'Have you a Hebrew Bible?' 'Yes, sir.' I was now
qualified to enter his hut. He made me a present of a very
beautiful Psalter, to read Hebrew with him. Possessing
Parkhursfs Greek Lexicon, he requested me to lend him the
one in Hebrew, which he had not seen, and also Campbell's
translation of the New Testament. This eccentric character
understood Latin, Greek, Hebrew, English, French, Dutch,
and German, and was familiar with divinity, law, physic, and
other subjects. He had an extensive acquaintance with the
Indians."

At sixteen years of age Glen had matriculated at the Uni-
versity of Glasgow and he had certainly labored faithfully
at his studies. As a Bible student he would care for Greek
and Hebrew, as a Swedenborg student he would care for
Latin, as a resident for forty-three years in Demerara which
still bore the imprint of Holland he would care for Dutch,
as a correspondent of men in France he would care for their

14 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

tongue; and he even knev»r Arabic, bequeathing his Bible in
that language to a New-Church Society in England, where
it is still preserved (Review, p. 568).

Turning to the New-Church Monthly Observer, 1861, pp.
138, 139, we find a letter, written by Mr. Glen on January
16, 1808, in which he says:

" A negro of Mr. Edmonstone's calls for this, going to the
island; therefore can only say, if I die in half an hour, I
can and will testify that the revelations of Swedenborg are
infinitely more valuable than all the riches and honour of
this short life, the value of which I certainly must know by
knowing the want of them! "

Picture him at last in a self-built hut thatched after the
Indian fashion with palms and furnished with frugal sim-
plicity. He is on the woodcutting estate of his old neighbor,
Mr. Edmonstone. Another friend, not of our faith, was de-
voted to care of the hermit and writes as follows:

"For the last six months of Mr. Glen's life he had two
of my most careful negroes constantly attending him and for
the few days previous to his death two more of my most
trusty men attended him. Mr. T. and myself saw him every
few hours of the day all the time. He appeared to die
without pain, and never uttered one word which could lead
any person to suppose he had altered his opinion with respect
to the persuasion he had professed for so many years; and
we must therefore suppose that he is now reaping the fruits
of his good works" (Review, pp. 566, 567).

Thus passed to another life the man who publicly intro-
duced the New Church into North America, who fostered it
in South America, who helped in its first organization in
Great Britain, and who, for more than thirty years, from his
reception of it until his death, gave without stint of his sub-
stance, his time, and his vitality for its sake.

II

PHILADELPHIA AS A RADIATING CENTER FOR THE
NEW CHURCH

James Glen brought to Philadelphia his torch of truth.
Who kindled their lamps from it, and transmitted its light
abroad after his manner? We know to some extent how far
the New Message warmed the feelings, softened the temper,
quickened the conscience, sweetened the hearthstone, and
smoothed the hard places in life for these eighteenth-century
people ; and we know that God measures His children thereby.
We will now chiefly watch the beacon lights extended from
point to point and from generation to generation, revealing
occasionally some noble trait in the light bearer.

Francis Bailey (1744-1817), son of Robert and Margaret
McDill Bailey, was Glen's first disciple. He was approach-
ing forty years of age when he turned from the theology of
the Genevan reformer to that set forth by the Swedish seer.
He had been an elder in the Pine Street Presbyterian Church
in Philadelphia; but now Glen's lectures on Scriptural sym-
bolism had aroused his interest, and soon after there fell
into his hands some works of Swedenborg sent on to Phila-
delphia for the Scotchman after his departure. These Bailey
eagerly read, and he sent to Hindmarsh in England for
additions. He had married Eleanor Millar, a maiden eleven
years his junior, who now warmly accepted the new faith with
her husband, and their home became a little center for re-
ligious reading and conversation and for circulating the
good tidings among friends (see Neiv Jerusalem Church
Repository for January, 1818, p. 326). He was printer in

16 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1784 to the State of Pennsylvania, but desired a larger field.
President Washington says of him on January 25, 1790: *

"A Mr. Francis Bailey, introduced by Messrs. Scott and
Hartley of Pennsylvania and Mr. ^Tiite of Virginia, offered
a paper, in the nature of a Petition, setting forth a valuable
discovery he had made of marginal figures for notes, certifi-
cates, etc., which could not by the ingenuity of man be
counterfeited — requesting I would appoint some person to
hear and examine him on the subject; that if the facts stated
by him should appear well founded, he might (being a printer
of Philadelphia) have the printing of all that sort of the
public business for which this discovery should be found
useful — and which he would do on as good terms as any
other printer, independent of the discovery above mentioned,
all the advantage he should expect from which being to obtain
a preference."

In the meantime Bailey was consecrating his knowledge
of the art of printing by enlarging his field, and publishing
in 1787 A Summary of the Heavenly Doctrines which he
distributed gratuitously. This was the first silent message
by type representing our faith which was sent out from the
western continent. Other small works following were freely
distributed to colleges and libraries (See his daughter's letter
in The Neivchurchman, vol. i, pp. 70-73).

Francis Bailey in 1789 issued an invitation for subscrip-
tions to his coming edition of The True Christian Religion
(See pp. 77, 539 in vol. i. of The New Churchman). Fifty
names were secured including those of our magnificently
self-sacrificing financier, Robert Morris, and our wonderful,
many-sided Benjamin Franklin, who had shown himself a
master printer in 1723, and whose hand press is still proudly
exhibited in Boston. Franklin was already an octogenarian.
His copy of the True Christian Religion told him in No. 792
that man's soul is not ether or a mere breath of air; and it
declared that man exists hereafter in a substantial spiritual
body, that he has sight, hearing, speech; and that death is
not the extinction of life, but its continuation, and only a

* Diary of George Washington from 1789 to 1791. Edited by Benson J. Lossing,
N. Y., 1870, p. 74.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 17

passage across. In 1729, in the composition of an epitaph
when a young man of twenty-three, Franklin had written
intelligently on the relation of the material body to the soul.

THE BODY

OF

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

PRINTER

(LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK

ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT

AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING)

LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS.

BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST

FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE

IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION

REVISED AND CORRECTED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

Franklin had already reacted strongly against his own
extreme free-thinking Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,
Pleasure and Pain, written when he was nineteen. He was
seventy-eight at the time of Glen's visit, and had expressed
his hesitation at receiving the Bible as wholly from heaven
because of recorded incidents like the killing of Sisera by
Jael. He was past eighty when his subscription for the True
Christian Religion was obtained through John Young, the
man who afterward sat long on the bench and held the scales
of justice with scrupulous and enlightening impartiality.
Franklin, three years after receiving Swedenborg's crowning
work was questioned regarding his own faith, and he replied:

"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator
of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That
he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable offer-
ing we can render to him is doing good to his other children.
That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with
justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. . . .
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particu-
larly desire, I think his system of religion and morals the
best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend
it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with

18 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to
his Divinity; ... I see no harm, however, in its being be-
lieved, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably
it has, of making his doctrines more respected and ob-
served. . . ." *

Bailey's name heads a list appended as witnesses to Frank-
lin's last will and testament in 1790. The two men were
brother printers and good friends, sharing Philadelphia as
a home for twenty-five years.

Subscriptions to the True Christian Religion were not
adequate to the cost. Bailey, with his characteristic disin-
terestedness in the cause of religion, assumed the burden of
the deficit, issuing one thousand copies largely at his own
expense (See Hindmarsh's Rise and Progress, p. 71; The
Newchurchman, vol. i, pp. 539, 540). In 1795 he wrote
Robert Carter, the Virginian, of persecutions experienced
because of adhesion to his new faith; and in 1800, having
met with great financial losses, he removed from Philadelphia
to Lancaster, Pennsylvania [New Jerusalem Magazine, vol.
XV, p. 74; New Jerusalem Magazine new series, vol. xvi, p.
290) . He was called to the other life in 1817.

Would you care to visit the spot where lies the discarded
garment of clay which Mr. Bailey wore while here, and
which he has forgotten for a hundred years? Go with us
on the centennial of his transition, 1917. In the interim
between sessions of the General Convention, at Philadelphia,
we are conducted hither by Mr. Ezra Hyde Alden on May
20. The grave is near Lansdowne, just west of the city, and
the air is full of serene tranquillity. The neighboring oak
trees, strong in their hold on the earth and in their power of
resistance, remind us of Mr. Bailey's tenacious grasp on
the elements of true strength. The verdure, flooded with
sunshine, is alive with birds, as Mr. Bailey's mind, luminous
with spiritual light, was alive with beautiful thoughts. We
note the robin, " giving thanks for abundant supplies," and
the song sparrow which the Bible tells us finds a nest for
herself near the altar of God; the other birds are cheerful

* Franklin's Autobiography, edited by John Bigelow in three volumes. Lip-
pincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1875. See vol. iii, pp. 289, 364, 365, 459, 460, 489.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 19

in attire — the blackbird, who would be sombre except for
his red wings, the meadow lark with a gay yellow breast, and
the woodpecker, sometimes called the flicker, with pretty
golden wings.

The grave is on land once occupied by the Upper Darby
Society of the New Jerusalem, and we are shown the site of
its former chapel for worship whose dimensions, thirty by
fifty feet, are outlined by low, well-set stones. In the shifting
of population the world has drifted away from this imme-
diate region, so that it is not directly on any road and is a
good place for meditation.

A small stone on the edge of the churchyard is commemo-
rative of the printing-press missionary whose dust lies be-
neath. The headstone bears the following inscription:

Francis Bailey, the first American New Churchman, 1784. The
first American publisher of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg,
1787. A bright example of active love and of doing good to others.

On the footstone we find the following: " F. B., Ter
Sepulium, Requiescat in Pace. J. H. J., 1863."

Other graves of followers of our faith are near, and we
read the names of Da Charms, Sellers, and Tyson. Quaint
lines are on the commemorative marble here and there — in-
scriptions telling us of happy hearthstones and prayerful
mothers :

Remember, wife, our happy days
When in the grave my body lays.
My spirit rests with God on high
Where you may meet me by-and-by.

Farewell to my child who is left behind,
May God direct his youthful mind.

The preservation of this ground, dear for its chapel and
other associations, is pleasant to see. In the New-Church
Messenger of October 27, 1915, is the account of a memorial
service for the Society, conducted by the Rev. Charles Harvey
of Philadelphia, who spoke appropriately of the Society's
purpose and work. Reminiscences from the Sellers and Kent
families testified to the loving devotion of early parishioners,
and a little Kent granddaughter named Rosamond unveiled

20 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

a massive granite memorial stone suitably inscribed and elo-
quent of the past.

Philip Morin Freneau (1752-1832) was a co-student with
James Madison and Aaron Burr at Princeton University.
After graduation his spirited Revolutionary War verses
stirred the patriots. He also wrote a poem entitled The True
Christian Religion, for which I vainly searched the Congres-
sional, the Widener, and the Boston libraries. It was dis-
covered in the Cambridge town library in a three-volume
edition of his writings together with his biography. The
sought-for poem first appeared in Bailey's Freeman's Jour-
nal on October 4, 1786, followed in the issue of October
25, by a column advertisement. It was reprinted in 1788 by
the Historical Association of Princeton, which published
the three-volume edition of his works. Extracts are given
below:

ON THE HONORARLE EMANUEL SWEDENRORG'S
UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY

The True Christian ReHgion
In this choice work, with wisdom penned, we find
The noblest system to reform Mankind,
Rold truths confirmed that bigots have denied,
By most perverted, and which some deride.
Here, truths divine in easy language flow,
Truths long concealed, that now all climes shall know.

Then slight — ah, slight not, this instructive page
For the mean follies of a dreaming age:
Here to the truth, by Reason's aid aspire.
Nor some dull preacher of romance admire:
See One, Sole God, in these convincing lines,
Reneath whose view perpetual daylight shines;
At whose Command all worlds their circuits run,
And night, retiring, dies before the sun !

Francis Bailey handed down the light of the New Church
to his descendants. His attractive daughters brought sons-
in-law into the family who were of kindred faith and who
became joint lamp-bearers with their wives, as they carried
them on little migratory journeys to their new homes.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 21

Francis Bailey's daughter Abbe married John Hough
James whose life began in 1800 and ripened into that of
an octogenarian. The New Church had been introduced
into the bridegroom's home, Urbana, in 1825 {New Jerusalem
Messenger, vol, xlvii, p. 201). The Jameses contributed very
generously to its continuance and founded the movement for
3ie Urbana New-Church University. The Silver family have
seen Mrs. Abbe Bailey James and have often recalled with
pleasure her large-hearted hospitality. Her daughter Ger-
trude married Henry Mayer Niles, whose surviving children
constitute a New-Church group at Toledo, Ohio, and they
are kinsmen of the Nileses who have enriched the Societies
of Laporte, Indiana, and of New York.

Another child of Abbe Bailey James, Captain John
Henry James, made the acquaintance of Harriet Hall
Lynch, a student at the Urbana University; and at twenty-
nine he went to Brampton, Ontario, to claim her as his bride
in marriage at her father's home. The Jameses' wedded
life was spent largely in Urbana, several children gathered
around their hearthstone, and she lived beyond the Biblical
three score and ten.

Through the James-Lynch marriage came another Abbe
Bailey James, who married Professor Lewis Field Hite, then
presiding over Greek and Latin courses in the Urbana Uni-
versity. His Virginia ancestry dates back to 1710. His
father discovered the New Church through a hostile article
in the New York Observer; he differed at once from it, fol-
lowed the matter up, and ended in Church membership. Pro-
fessor Hite was ordained into the New-Church ministry the
very year of his marriage, 1893, and is now (1920) Professor
of Philosophy in our Cambridge Theological School, and is
Managing Editor of the New-Church Review.

Here is a New-Church genealogical ladder; I never record
one of less than five runsis.

Francis Bailey married Eleanor Millar.
Abbe Bailey married John Hough James.
John Henry James married in 1863 Harriet Hall
Lynch.

22 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

iv. Abbe Bailey James married in 1893 Lewis Field Hite.
V. Ensign Hugh Maury Hite of Harvard has been flying
over France in the Aviation Corps in the World War. Harriet
James Hite, a cum laude alumna of Radcliffe, is (1919) in-
structress in Spanish in the Urbana University. These young
people are great-great-grandchildren of Francis Bailey, the
first American light-bearer for the New Church, who was
born in 1745.

Frederick E. Eckstein was another wooer drawn to Francis
Bailey's home, marrying his daughter Jane. Frederick's
father, John Eckstein, was bom in Germany in 1736, being
four years old when Frederick the Great came to the throne,
and remaining in Berlin more than forty years. Young Eck-
stein grew up to become a sculptor and his ability was recog-
nized by His Majesty, who gave him commissions covering
many years for the execution of work to adorn the royal
palaces.

What led John Eckstein, sculptor also to the King's suc-
cessor, to quit Germany for a country of political self-de-
termination? He brought his family to Philadelphia probably
about the year 1790, where he is described by Mr. Condy-
Raguet as a sympathetic member of the group of New-Church
disciples. His son, Frederick Eckstein, with his wife, Jane
Bailey Eckstein, was living in Cincinnati in 1826 and taught
modeling to Hiram Powers, who lighted, in Cincinnati, his
spiritual torch of truth which he never allowed to grow dim
during the thirty-six years of his life abroad and who was
baptized by Rev. Thomas Worcester in 1850 [New Jerusalem
Messenger, vol. xxv, p. 438). Sons-in-law came into the
Eckstein family as follows:

Alexander Kinmont, who married Mary, daughter of Fred-
erick E. and Jane Bailey Eckstein, was bom in 1799 near
Montrose, eastern Scotland. His parents were devout Pres-
byterians, living in a century when the kirk was militant,
and the conservative Old Lights accused the liberal New
Lights of an attempt "to jostle Christ out of His Church."
Barrie, in his humorous, pathetic, and whimsical way, has
given us glimpses of this in his Auld Licht Idylls, and his
Window in Thrums. Alexander Kinmont entered St. Andrews

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 23

at Glasgow at nineteen, and carried off first prizes in Greek,
Geometry, and Latin, conversing with ease in the latter, and
gaining a valuable scholarship. Transferring after three
years to Edinburg University, he studied philosophy and
theology; but questioning the prevailing tenets, he narrowly
escaped agnosticism.

An ardent friend of free institutions, and living near the
alluring sea, young Kinmont abruptly sailed for New York
in 1823. Finding no employment and with an exchequer
alarmingly low, he walked to Baltimore and on to Bedford,
Pennsylvania. Here he at once secured the Principalship of
its Classical Academy where the brilliant scholar became the
successful teacher.

And now came a turn in his life when the skeptical views
in his mind and the gloomy feelings in his heart were grad-
ually dispersed by a knowledge of the Arcana by Sweden-
borg. He opened it reluctantly, read it carefully, gradually
recognized its worth, and became thoroughly convinced of
the inspiration from God of the Scriptures. After four years,
he went in 1827 to Cincinnati, and became not only instructor
in higher secular branches, but a live lay teacher of the
New-Church doctrines for the remaining years of his life.
His favorite authors were Swedenborg, Plato, Homer, Tacitus,
Cicero, Bacon, St. Augustine, and Milton in Paradise Lost
apart from its theological dogmas.

In 1829 he married Mary Eckstein and was called to the
higher world seven years later. At the Cincinnati General
Convention in 1857 Mrs. Kinmont presented to the Rev.
Abiel Silver a copy of her husband's work of three hundred
and fifty-five pages, published by U. P. James of Cincinnati
in 1839, entitled Twelve Lectures on the Natural History
of Man, and the Rise and Progress of Philosophy. It is ac-
companied by a biographical sketch of the author written by
one of his pupils, whence m_aterial for this chapter has been
drawn.

Alexander Kinmont's daughters. Misses Eleanor and Jane,
came pleasantly into my life on Sunday" afternoon, June 21,
1908. After services in the little Glendale, Ohio, chapel
situated in a grove; after simple, heartfelt worship and an

24 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

impressive sermon by the Rev. Louis G. Hoeck, a few of the
worshippers were invited to the Kinmont house near by. We
sat on the generous porch festooned by vines and fragrant
with flowers, and listened to Browning's Saul effiectively ren-
dered by the minister. Then we entered the old family man-
sion, and the aunt of the family, Miss Frances Eckstein,
showed us interesting bas-reliefs of sacred subjects made by
her Prussian Eckstein grandfather, sculptor to King Frederick
the Great; we saw also, the precious family Bible bound in
red morocco in which grandmother Eleanor Millar Bailey
devoutly read daily in the olden time. Miss Frances, born
in 1815, lost her sight at eighty, but resolutely learned the
alphabet of touch, and at ninety-nine grasped current news
in periodicals and daily papers. She celebrated her birth-
day with a festive reception and attended a suffrage meeting
the next day. She was spirited on this, my second visit, and
lived to be a centenarian.

Another wooer came into Frederick Eckstein's home and
married the daughter Charlotte. Daniel Thuun, like his
father-in-law, was born in Germany. We first hear of him
in 1803 at Philadelphia, a neighlDor and warm friend of
the English Rev. William Hill who translated Swedenborg's
Apocalypsis Explicata into English in six octavo volumes for
publication in London. This work Thuun gratuitously tran-
scribed for preservation in case Hill's original niss. should
be lost at sea. Thuun, formerly an extensive merchant, was
now zealous in his religious faith and cooperated in 1815
in the organized work of the Central Convention. He is
described by a coworker as being in 1841 " an aged gentle-
man" {New Jerusalem Magazine, vol. xliv, p. 178; New
Churchman, vol. i, pp. 163, 165).

Miss Margaret Gary gives us another glimpse. She dis-
covered Swedenborg in 1796 in Boston, and in her subse-
quent visits to her fourteen brothers and sisters scattered
about the country she visited many New-Church people. In
her autograph private letters lying before me addressed to
Mrs. Henry A. Worcester she describes the Thuun hospi-
tality as whole-souled and sympathetic.

A new and interesting element now came into Thuun's

SKETCBES OF THE NEW CHURCH 25

life which deflected his outward path and gave him pictur-
esque experiences. He made the acquaintance, ripening into
warm cooperation, with a son of Gen. J. R. Steiger of Na-
poleon's army. Baron Steiger came from Switzerland
bringing several hundred compatriots with him. He pur-
chased a thousand or more acres in Athens County, on Little
Federal Creek, southern Ohio, about forty miles west
from Marietta. Here, having considerable wealth, he at-
tempted to establish a baronial home in the wilderness and
here he planted his Swiss colony.

We first hear of the titled Swiss pioneer in 1821, through
a letter from the Rev. Holland Weeks who has given up his
"darling Calvinistic doctrines," who has been excommuni-
cated in 1820 from his former church at Abington because
of Swedenborgian heresy, and has been ordained into the
New Church. Weeks, in his communication to the New
Jerusalem Messenger, vol. xxx, p. 177, tells of a letter from
Thuun (misprinted Thuren) announcing Steiger's arrival in
Philadelphia, his discovery of Swedenborg's teachings, the
acceptance of them by his wife and himself, and his de-
termination to make the New Church the religion of his
Ohio Swiss colony. He is contemplating the New-Church
ministry for his son, and Thuun wishes him to be trained
by Mr. Weeks. The plan did not come to fruition, the young
Swiss apparently deciding to remain a layman. In 1822, in
the Journal of the General Convention, page 17, appears a
letter from the Baron written at Steiger s Rest, as follows:

"I have formed a new settlement of Swiss emigrants and
I shall admit no other than sober, orderly, and well disposed
people. All these I intend to introduce to the New Jerusalem.
For this purpose I have concluded to erect a place of wor-
ship on my ground."

Accompanying this letter is a declaration of belief in the
doctrines signed by twenty-one persons; all of whom, except
two, are Swiss.

Another testimonial comes from Rev. John Randolph
Hibbard who was bom only four miles from Steiger s Rest.
In his youth he had seen the aged Baron once or twice and
he speaks of the brick church on a hill where Mr. Thuun

26 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

served as chaplain to the family ("Reminiscences of a Pio-
neer " signed " H " in New Jerusalem Messenger for 1883,
vol. xliv, pp. 207, 208). This place of worship on Thuun's
own estate recalls New-Church services I have heard in three
private chapels on grounds of the owner's residence: in
1878, in that of Rev. John Worcester at Intervale, New
Hampshire; in 1880, in that of Mr. Simon H. Greene at
River Point, Warwick, Rhode Island; and in 1904, in that
of Mr. Arthur Astor Carey on Little Harbor Road near Ports-
mouth, New Hampshire.

We have now traced the radiating light of the New Church
in Philadelphia down through Francis Bailey's descendants
— the Jameses, Nileses, Hites, Ecksteins, Kinmonts, and
Thuuns. Mr. Bailey's daughter. Miss Margaret, after shar-
ing her father's religious zeal, caring for his old age, and
leaving us valuable reminiscences, carried her virgin lamp
to her final home, Urbana.

Miss Hetty Barclay was also one of those good virgins
who kept her lamp trimmed and burning and, using it as a
radiating instrumentality, carried it from Philadelphia
westerly to Bedford, Pennsylvania, in 1789, for the further
illumination of that region and for the guidance of her own
footsteps. Hindmarsh says of her seven years' residence
until her death in Bedford:

" There, by her intelligent and spiritual conversations and
a variety of Swedenborg's works which she took with her,
she laid the foundation of a New-Church Society which,
so long as it existed, had reason to bless her memory." We
recall that Alexander Kinmont discovered the Arcana in
1823 in Bedford. We find Miss Barclay of Bedford in
1792 writing of her own desire for baptism in her letter to
her sister Polly in Philadelphia, and sending a communica-
tion over the Alleghany Mountains and the Laurel Hills to
Judge John Young at Greensburg. She speaks of her Phila-
delphia visit and of the gatherings there " to read the works
of our enlightened Swedenborg"; of her new possession of
five small volumes in German — including Heaven and Hell
and Earths in the Universe — which will be most acceptable

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 27

to a few persons who cannot read English ; and of her assured
feeling of real joy that there will be formed a Bedford So-
ciety which will not be afraid nor ashamed to acknowledge
publicly their reception of the New Jerusalem doctrine. She
is receiving the New Magazine of Knowledge, a monthly peri-
odical concerning heaven and hell founded in London in
1790, and desires copies of all other Church literature
{Newchurchman, vol. i, pp. 401, 402; Hindmarsh's Rise
and Progress, p. 29). She has been classed as the first
woman in the world to accept our faith.

John Young was, according to available data, the bride-
groom at the first New-Church wedding in the world; he
and Miss Maria Barclay solemnizing their marriage in unity
of religious faith on November 12, 1794 {Newchurchman,
vol. i, bottom of page 77). Priority of claim in this respect
has been made for the Hill-Duche marriage which really
ranks second in time, occurring, as their warm friend, Mar-
garet Gary, states, in ]797 {New Jerusalem Magazine, vol.
XXX, p. 393).

John Young was born in Glasgow in 1762. As he grew up
little did he suspect that another Scotch lad named James
Glen, twelve years his senior, was in the same town and was
to be his spiritual benefactor in a far-away land. Thus do
ships pass in the night to meet finally in the same haven.
John was one of five children " all sedulously and piously
instructed in the Solifidian dogmas of the antiburgher
school." These dogmas, as the Latinized adjective suggests,
teach this: "that faith alone without works is sufficient for
justification." Swedenborg, in denying this tenet, said a
good word for the Scotch laity as turning in part away from
it {True Christian Religion No. 812).

John Young's father was a prosperous cloth merchant in
Glasgow until he became security for a large amount in be-
half of his brother William. Both went down in the financial
crash, the former surviving it only ten days. John was at
this time in Edinburg studying law with Waher Scott's
father, "a man conspicuous for methodical and thorough
industry." Waher became very proud of his pastoral ances-

28 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

try through his father — descended from the " Border lairds "
who were sheep-farmers and lively marauders. Little Walter
was seven years old when John Young was privileged to
study law under the man with the picturesque forbears.

Law studies were abruptly terminated through the finan-
cial disaster to the Youngs; and John, after procuring posi-
tions of self-support for his brothers, emigrated to Philadel-
phia with, it is affirmed, only one English shilling in his
pocket. He was, however, accomplished, and attracted the
attention of Mr. Duponceau, a notary public, and sworn in-
terpreter of foreign languages. The latter accepted John
and certified later to the great and valuable services ren-
dered by him in legal matters and in the French language.
Passing on to the law office of Judge Wilson, John Young
was finally admitted to the bar and practised for many years
until his promotion to the bench in 1805.

A sharp turn, fatal to any remnants of Solifidianism in
John Young's mind, came to him soon after his arrival in
Philadelphia. He was impressed in 1784 with the new mes-
sage of the spirit that fell from the lips of his fellow-country-
man, James Glen. From the latter Mr. Young borrowed the
first volume of the Arcana in Latin, read it with attention,
and ripened into deep conviction of its truth. Possessing
himself through London of the True Christian Religion in
1788, he cooperated vigorously with Francis Bailey in gain-
ing subscribers for its publication.

Lawyer Young, the spiritual light-bearer, removed in 1789
to Greensburg, a little southeast of Pittsburg. He practised
his vocation according to his religion:

"He was ever careful to avoid the prosecution of an
unjust cause ; and when he was satisfied of the entire want of
justice in a client's cause he would refuse his professional
skill and counsel under the strongest temptations from pe-
cuniary inducements. In every important case when satisfied
of its justice he secretly addressed himself in prayer to Him
who is Justice and Judgment itself."

An impeachment against him by rival lawyers " was treated
as it deserved, by the legislature's throwing it under the
table." A subsequent attempt by them proved abortive.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 29

Heaven prospered him and his yearly income reached five
thousand dollars. He gave liberally to neighboring churches,
not forgetting his own. He corresponded extensively with
coreligionists abroad and cultivated their acquaintance as
visitors here. When traveling in Europe, he took his precious
New-Church books for private reading and possible distri-
bution; and he defended them with energy and effect in
periodicals at home.

Romance came into his life. Law collections and agencies
took him frequently to Philadelphia where he wooed and
won Miss Maria Barclay, an orphan living under the warm
roof-tree of Francis Bailey. As there was in 1794 no New-
Church ordained ministry in the western hemisphere, these
coreligionists employed as officiating clergyman for their
wedding the Rev. Nicholas Collin, who filled the pulpit
for forty-five years (1786-1831) of the Old Swedes' Church
in Philadelphia. The building which was dedicated in 1700,
is the oddest structure, with a pronounced elongated effect
in height; its very narrow front terminating in a spire resting
on a tall slender base. The apse is hexagonal, and the pedi-
ments of the steep-roofed front and transepts are equilateral
triangles. Within is a wood carving brought over by early
colonists which represents animated cherubic heads with out-
spread wings, and a Swedish Biblical inscription below.

Judge Young and his wife might well be interested in
Pastor Collin's letters of 1801 regarding Swedenborg and
his father published in the Philadelphia Gazette for August
5, 8, and 10. Pastor Collin had been a student at Emanuel
Swedenborg's Alma Mater, the Upsala University of Sweden,
and 'was familiar with his Arcana, Heaven and Hell, and
minor works, although not professing his sentiments. In
1766, when twenty years of age, he went to Stockholm and
waited on Swedenborg at his house. They conversed for
nearly three hours. Collin had heard of Swedenborg's inter-
course with those of the other world, which was always direct,
and never through mediums or any instrumentality, and
he asked his host for an interview with his departed brother.
Swedenborg questioned him as to his motives, but did not
consider them sufficiently cogent to justify a communication.

30 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

saying that God, for good and wise purposes, had separated
the world of spirits from ours. Mr. Collin's three years in
Stockhohn gave him opportunity to testify in many ways
to the excellencies and attainments of the Swedish seer, and
he comments as follows:

"Swedenborg was universally esteemed for his various
erudition in mathematics, mineralogy, etc., and for his
probity, benevolence, and general virtue. Being very old
[78] when I saw him, he was thin and pale, but still retained
traces of beauty and had something very pleasing in his
physiognomy, and a dignity in his tall and erect stature."

Pastor Collin also comments in laudatory terms of Sweden-
borg's father, Jesper Swedberg, who was appointed in 1696
superintendent of the Swedish churches in America, London
and Portugal, and was made Bishop of Skara in 1702 by
Charles XII. A letter from distressed Swedes in America
asking for spiritual aid was referred to Swedberg by His
Majesty, who said, " The means shall be provided, and they
shall have clergymen, God's Word, and the necessary books,
only select for me useful clergymen." Whereupon, Anders
Rudman, Jonas Auren and Eric Bjork were selected and sent.
The latter served indef atigably for sixteen years and his name
is on a window in the Old Swedes' Church in Wihnington,
Delaware, which I have visited. The building was dedicated
in 1699 (From carefully sifted data including Collin's letters
collected in Sweden by Prof. Rudolph L. Tafel and printed
under the title. Documents concerning the Life and Character
of Emanuel Sivedenborg, London, 1875. See vol. i, pp. 83,
127-129; vol. ii, pp. 417-424).

Mr. and Mrs. Young, after the closing marriage benedic-
tion on their heads from Rev. Nicholas Collin, went to their
Greensburg home. As years went on, eight little olive plants
gathered around their table and happiness crowned their
board. If Mrs. Young had ambitious pride it was gratified
by her husband's appointment in 1805 as presiding judge
of the tenth judicial district of Pennsylvania over an area
comprising five counties, where he held office for thirty-one
years. It was currently reported that Governor M'Kean
gave him authority over the talented though turbulent bar.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 31

because of his firmness, integrity, and great legal acquire-
ments, but he did not like his religion!

Judge Young made six languages his servants. Latin was
to him as English, he read Swedenborg in the original, and
enjoyed the Bible version by Schmidius. He acquired Span-
ish that he might greet his boy returning from South America,
and the Tuscan tongue, that he might entertain Italian visi-
tors; he was called the German Judge by the Germans. His
knowledge of the tongue of Paris was praised by the French
Duponceau; he loved the French review, La Nouvelle Jeru-
salem, edited by Richer (see Newchurchman, vol. i, pp.
75-80).

John Adams tells us that, "as the Continental Congress,
opening at Philadelphia in September, 1774, included per-
sons of many creeds, a serious question arose as to the choice
of clergyman for the opening prayer; whereupon Samuel
Adams named Mr. Duche as a gentleman of piety and virtue.
Congress consented and Mr. Duche, an Anglican clergyman,
appeared in full pontificals." Appointed chaplain of Con-
gress, he, who appropriated all his salary to the relief of
soldiers' families, grew in popularity.

But now came the parting of the ways; every man must
rebel with the Colonies, or uphold the British king. Duche
wrote to George Washington a letter urging him to retract;
it was sharply rejected, and forwarded to Congress. Duche
fled to England in 1777.

The erroneous statement is often made that the opening
prayer of the Continental Congress was made by the Rev.
Jacob Duche, a New Churchman. He did indeed possess at
that time a set of Swedenborg's works in Latin whose message
was apparently unread. Now a light hidden under a bushel
will no more illumine the mind than uncut wood in a forest
will warm a hearthstone. But, when Mr. Duche went abroad,
he learned the value of his own books. Robert Hindmarsh
in his Rise and Progress, pp. 40, 41, tells us that, until there
was distinctive organized worship in London for New Church-
men, they attended Mr. Duche's Anglican services at the
Orphan Asylum on Sunday mornings, and met at his house

32 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

during several years for private conversation on our doc-
trines in a truly delightful manner, receiving from Mr.
Duche's lips " the most impressive lessons of instruction, and
mutually interchanging sentiments of pure affection for the
truth, and for one another." Mrs. John Adams praises the
morning services.

After the removal of the Congressional embargo on Tories,
Duche returned to America in 1790. He identified himself
with the New Church, and traveled with his wife, "through
many parts, preaching the doctrines." They were called
to the other life with but a brief interval between.

A lover of Duche's noble daughter Esther did not come any
too soon to furnish the orphaned girl a sheltered and beautiful
home. The Rev. William Hill, an Anglican divine, but an
eager advocate of the New Church who had, in 1794 pre-
sented the Arcana to Harvard, took ship again from Eng-
land in 1797 with romance in his heart. He had known Miss
Duche in England for ten years and had won over her father
to our faith. He had no need to convert the damsel to the
New Church, for both she and her short-lived brother loved
the religious faith of their parents. Miss Margaret Cary,
of Boston, a disciple of Mr. Hill, describes him as tall and
elegant, with clear complexion and bright blue eyes. Quaint
pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Hill are given in the New-Church
League Journal for April, 1917. (For Duche, see the
Monthly Observer, 1857, vol. i, p. 79; New Jerusalem Maga-
zine, 1866, vol. xxxviii, pp. 496, 561, 615).

Daniel Lammot (1782-1877) is much associated with
Philadelphia, although his lamp of truth caught the flame in
Baltimore; and he kept it trimmed and burning under seven-
teen of our presidents, from Jefferson to Hayes. Espousing
our faith at twenty and dying a ripe nonogenarian, Lammot
served as its staunch defender for seventy-five years.

Wliat ancestral blood flowed in his veins?

Daniel's grandfather, Jean Henri de la Motte, a Huguenot,
was born in Paris in 1720, in the troublous times of little
King Louis XV and he gladly fled to Switzerland, taking final
refuge in America. Escaping religious persecution abroad

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 33

he was also driven temporarily from his Maryland home by
the hostile redskins. He resolutely clung to the new world
and refused an offer of adoption for one of his four sons from
his brother, General Nicholas de la Motte, who was here with
the fleet of d'Estaing in our Revolutionary War.

Daniel, bom in 1753, son of Jean Henri, lived in Balti-
more, where he discovered the New Church. His son, Daniel
2d, in endeavoring to convince his father of the "error of his
ways," became himself converted and commenced laboring
for the Church under Rev, John Hargrove in 1802.

Daniel Lammot, Jr., the subject of our sketch, simplified
the spelling of his family name. Successful in a large
importing house, he married in 1806 a daughter of Paul
Beck, a leading merchant of Philadelphia, and removed to
that city in 1808. His name figures in early records, he
became president of the Central Convention, and carried on
an international correspondence on the subject nearest his
heart. He had the French ease of expression and extended
wide and courtly hospitality. Four children were born to
him by his first wife, and nine by his second, Anna P. Smith.
Of the thirteen sons and daughters, I knew eight, each dis-
tinctly characteristic and interesting.

Lammot sat to the artist Sully, familiar to us all by his
delightful child-picture. The Torn Hat. Sully was known
at home and abroad through training under Stuart and West,
and his patrons ranged from Queen Victoria and Fanny
Kemble to Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Lammot. Sully's
portrait of the latter depicts him in the grace and elegance
of his early years, with the white waistcoat, the ruffles, and
the voluminous white neckcloth of the period.

Mr. Lammot after seventy-three years in Maryland and
Pennsylvania removed southward, and became for the re-
maining twenty-t^vo years of his life "Father of the New
Church in Delaware." But it must never be forgotten that
his eldest daughter, Mrs. Margaretta Lammot du Pont, was
its gracious godmother. She was his avant-courriere, pre-
ceding him by thirty-one years in coming to Wilmington as
a bride. Three other adult children also came hither before
him bringing their lamps with them.

34 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

William M. Chauvenet was a Philadelphia New Church-
man, seven of whose autograph letters lie before me, written
in 1837-1839, and addressed to his dearly esteemed friend,
Rev. Henry A. Worcester of Bath, to whom he looked up as
an ecclesiastical advisor, being conscientiously solicitous for
the organization of the New Church according to the laws of
spiritual order. He is corresponding with M. Edouard Richer
at Nantes, on the Loire, who, in spite of childhood and youth
contemporaneous with the tumultuous French Revolution and
Napoleonic wars, lived to write books of serene spirituality.
Chauvenet's letters reveal large-hearted hospitality. Church
devotion, and parental loving pride in his son William at
Yale.

This Yale alumnus of 1840 was shortly after appomted
Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy, adding
astronomy, navigation, and surveying in his subsequent
position at Annapolis. His last years terminating in 1870,
were spent in St. Louis, where he was Chancellor of the
Washington University. Many years after his death, Presi-
dent Taft, Charles J. Bonaparte, and others urged Congress
successfully to a proper act of recognition of him by which
a bronze tablet was placed at the entrance to the Naval
Academy together with a portrait of him in bas-relief (see
New-Church Messenger, pp. 475, 476, for June 11, 1919).
Upon the tablet is the following inscription:

William Chauvenet, Professor of Mathematics United
States Navy and President of the Academic Board from
1847 to 1850, largely through whose efforts and plan
the naval academy was established and organized at
Annapolis.

Mr. W. M. Chauvenet, of St. Louis, son of the Naval
Professor, has arrested our interest and attention by his
notable front-page articles in the Messenger for October,
1918, and for Mav, 1919, entitled, " And Simon Peter stood
by the fire and warmed himself," and " The New Patriotism."

We will now turn to a Swiss Presbyterian. Paulus
Schlatter (1685-1748) lived in St. Gall, a pretty Swiss
canton with much Alpine pasturage which we traverse in

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 35

visiting Lake Constance. The forceful Roman Catholic
Abbot lived in St. Gall, which was also the birthplace of
Zwingli, the Protestant Reformer. The latter exercised much
influence, and had laid down his Confession:

" The Canonic Scriptures, the Word of God, given by the
Holy Spirit, and set forth by the Prophets and Apostles,
the most perfect and ancient of all philosophies, also contain
perfectly all piety and the whole rule of life."

Paulus Schlatter married a lady with a sonorous and
interesting name, Magdalena Zollikofer, and their little son
Michael, born in 1716, grew up under intelligent and pious
influences. Michael was much in Holland and married a
lady with a name that suggests Dutch nationality — Mar-
garetta Van Schleidom. He allied himself with Protestantism
and was sent by the Dutch Synods of Holland to represent
the Reformed Church in America in 1746. He convened
prominent clergy in Philadelphia, planned an organization,
solicited pecuniary aid abroad, came back permanently in
1752 bringing six ministers with him, became himself a
clergyman, preaching earnestly, and also engaged extensively
in Charity Schools {Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xxiii, page
24). He served as chaplain under the British government
in our French and Indian wars, but courageously espoused
the Colonial cause in 1777, was imprisoned, his spacious
stone house at Chestnut Hill was plundered, and valuable
family papers were lost. *

Gerhard Schlatter, Michael's son, kept alive the patriotic
war spirit, served as adjutant in the battles of Germantown,
Princeton, and Brandywine; and, in spite of having two
horses shot under him, lived until our wise nation-makers
had completed the Federal Constitution in 1787.

How did " Old Parson Schlatter," as the Reverend Michael
was affectionately called, learn of the New Church? Tra-
ditions, transmitted by the lips of his descendants, tell us that
he used Swedenborg's works in the original as text-books in
Latin for his boys. It must be remembered that he was

* Life of Rev. Michael Schlatter, with full account of his travels and labors
among the Germans, by Rev. H. Harbaugh, Lindsy and Blackiston. 375 pp.
PhUadelphia, 1857.

1564160

36 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

intimately associated with Holland where many of the Swede's
writings, scientific and theological, were published, that he
outlived Swedenborg by eighteen years, and that he was in
Philadelphia during Glen's visit.

William Schlatter (1784-1827), grandson of Michael and
son of Gerhard, was the Father Bountiful of the Philadelphia
New Church. He published at his own expense thousands of
copies of Swedenborg's small doctrinal works, and we read
that, being an extensive importing merchant in 1816,
"through the medium of his regular business he has sent
in his packing cases nearly two thousand books, large and
small, to every quarter, especially to the West, reaching
men of great independence and intelligence, who assured him
that they would read and distribute the gifts" (Hindmarsh's
Rise and Progress, pp. 268, 273).

The Philadelphia New-Church Society, being unable to
erect a suitable House of Worship, " Mr. Schlatter, with a
liberality indicative of his ardent zeal in the cause, resolved
in 1816 to undertake the construction of such an edifice out
of his own private funds" {New Churchman, vol. i. p. 166).
A picture of the completed building at the corner of Twelfth
and George Streets, near Chestnut Street, may be seen in
Odhner's Annals, p. 256. It was square, with arched doors
and windows, and small oval apertures above. It was sur-
mounted by a broad dome crowned by a small hexagonal
lantern. Mention should be made of Mr. Schlatter's very
extensive correspondence — fortunately preserved — with
New Churchmen in various parts of the world. Let us follow
the light he loved through his marriage with Catharine Vaughn
Lyon.

Theophilus Parsons Chandler (1807-1886) who married
Elizabeth the daughter of William and Catharine Schlatter
had an ancestral story of color and incident pertaining to
colonial life. He sprang from four generations of Duxbury,
Massachusetts, Chandlers, beginning with Edmond (1588-
1662), an English immigrant.

The grandfather of Theophilus was Peleg Wadsworth
Chandler (1735-1819), who married in 1762 Sarah Wins-
low. According to tradition he gave her a wedding journey

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 37

in an ox cart, and he truly did present her two chairs carved
with his own jack-knife, which, as heirlooms, I have seen in
Horace Chandler's house. The characteristic products of the
early American craftsmen are more interesting than the soul-
less outcome of the steam-turned lathe. Moreover, these
chairs embody the ardor of a lover cherishing visions of a
new home with his unparalleled Sarah.

They adopted as a home New Gloucester, a town with a
history north of Portland, Maine (see The New Gloucester
Centennial, 1874, by T. H. Haskell, Portland). The Old
Block House erected in 1753 was a fort and a church and a
home all in one, with two swivel guns, twenty-five pounds of
powder, and seventy-five pounds of lead. The building was
of hewn pine, bullet proof, with oak door and narrow slot
windows. Later, came better laws, a schoolhouse and a
church. Into this town, in the days of its grim but growing
idealism when striving for freedom, education and religion,
came young Peleg and Sarah Chandler, who became charter
church members and pioneers of Orthodoxy. Soon, Samuel
Foxcroft, a Harvard graduate, was called as pastor, who
should receive $400.00 salary, and $500.00 worth of shingles
and boards for his house. I am afraid that at his consecra-
tion there was no rigid prohibitory law to be enforced,
because Parson Smith said that " it was a jolly ordination, and
they lost sight of decorum." A Chandler and a Parsons bid
off church pews together, little realizing that their descendants
would worship in Boston and Brookline Churches of the New
Jerusalem.

From the spacious dwelling house erected for Mr. and
Mrs. Peleg Wadsworth Chandler, their son Peleg at eighteen
went forth on his gray horse Rosinante for Rhode Island
College, now called Brown. His father hoped that he had
especial regard for God's glory and for his own soul. After
graduation he married Esther, aged twenty-two, daughter
of his neighbor, Isaac Parsons, Jr.

Theophilus Parsons Chandler, son of Peleg and Esther,
settled in Bangor, adopted the law, and was associated with
Albert W. Paine. Later he married Elizabeth Schlatter, and
made Brookline his home, opening his hospitable gates to the

38 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

General Convention for a garden party which I recaU. His
mother, Mrs. Esther Parsons Chandler, surviving her husband
eighteen years, spent her last days with her son, bringing
sunshine with her, and accepting New-Church baptism in
1865 at ninety years of age.

We first knew Mr. Schlatter's daughter, Mrs. Theophilus
Chandler, in Wilmington, Delaware, as a guest of Mrs. Houns-
field, to whom, in her characteristically demonstrative way,
she brought " oceans of love." In my father's ministrations
to Brookline we learned to esteem her warmly. I saw her
last in 1892 in her own home. My household treasures were
all in the invisible world; and there was in her welcome the
cordial touch of the hand, the warm breath of hospitality,
and the loving reminiscence of those dear to both of us. It
was the year of her own transition to the better world. Her
face, framed in silver curls, was beautiful and serene, illum-
ined by the higher light from above. Her New-Church
descendants continue the line, only we must remember that
the head of the Schlatter line never heard of our faith,
i. Paulus Schlatter married Magdalena Zollikof er.
ii. Michael Schlatter married Margaretta Von Schlei-
dorn.

iii. Gerhard Richard Schlatter married ?

iv. William Schlatter married Catherine Vaughn Lyon.

V. Elizabeth Schlatter married Theophilus Parsons
Chandler.

vi. Mary Chandler married Edwin A Gibbens.

vii. Frances Vaughn Gibbens married George Copp
Warren.

viii. Herbert, Edwina, Lewis and Constance Warren, of
Brookline, who have received the rite of confirmation, and
three of whom have served overseas in the Great War, are
great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren of Paulus Schlat-
ter, the Swiss of St. Gall, born in 1685.

Ill

BALTIMORE THE HOME OF MANY
NEW-CHURCH BEGINNINGS

I. The first Society for New-Church religious worship
in the United States was organized in Baltimore in April,
1792, with a score or more members. Prominent among them
was Christian Kramer, who had rebelled against predesti-
nation and other dogmas, had examined many creeds, and had
narrowly escaped complete atheism. His clinging faith in a
First Cause was as a glimpse of light. His casual remark
to a friend that Swedenborg was " a wonderful writer, like-
wise a madman " led to a reply that sent him in quest of the
True Christian Religion. This book was accepted and brought
him into clear, well-ordered thought. He belonged to the
church militant and stood his ground permanently against
misrepresentation and persecution.

President George Washington made a tour of the United
States early in 1793. Visiting Baltimore, he was presented
by the New-Church Society with a copy of The Compendium
of the New Church. An accompanying letter expressed their
joy that the Holy Word is being spiritually fulfilled in our
day, and they offered a warm tribute to the Chief Executive,
expressing the " fervent aspiration of his faithful fellow-
citizens and affectionate brethren " that the Lord Jesus, whom
alone they acknowledged as " the True God and Eternal Life "
would preserve him long to reign in the hearts of the people
and finally to shine in the unfading mansions above.

His Excellency in reply, after thanks, and the recognition
of an over-ruling Providence in our national affairs, declared
that every person might here worship God according to the
dictates of his own heart, and he concluded as follows:

"Your prayers for my present and future felicity are
received with gratitude; and I sincerely wish, gentlemen, that
you may, in your social and individual capacities, taste those
blessings which a gracious God bestows upon the righteous "

40 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

(For Kramer and Washington, see Hindmarsh's Rise and
Progress of the New Church, pp. 150-155).

The Rev. Philip CabeU of Virginia (1836-1904), who
had large social facilities for knowing the people of his state,
reports the statement made by a member of the Washington
family that the General was during his later years a reader of
Swedenborg's Writings {New Jerusalem Messenger, Ixii,
page 75).

II. Baltimore, in 1798, anticipated all sections of North
and South America by witnessing the first ordination into the
New-Church ministry, the candidates being John Hargrove and
Ralph Mather. * Hargrove (1750-1839) brought with him
at nineteen from Ireland the zeal of his race, and it is not
strange that the fervor of the Methodist Church at Baltimore
was congenial to him. After years of membership he was
ordained into the ministry in 1795. Was some of Wesley's
tenacity of purpose and moral courage infused into him?
For it must be remembered that Wesley, always a member of
the Church of England, had the nerve to cut Methodism loose
in America, and to create Thomas Coke the first Methodist
bishop in the world. Bishop Coke ordained Francis Asbury,
and Bishop Asbury ordained John Hargrove, who preached
until he began to read Swedenborg's Writings in order to
refute them, but became convinced of their truth, and fully ac-
cepted their message. Who ordained Mr. Hargrove into the
New-Church ministry? We read in The Precursor, vol. ii,
No. 42, page 290:

"Mr. Hargrove was solemnly inducted into the sacred
office of the New-Church ministry by persons duly appointed
by the Society in their presence by the laying on of hands.
To this origin all the ordinations into the New-Church Minis-
try in the United States are to be traced."

A second Methodist clergyman, the Rev. Adam Fonerden,
discovered our faith in 1795. He brought a knowledge of
Swedenborg to Daniel Lammot and his son. Adam Foner-
den's son John (1804-1869), left fatherless at seventeen,
gathered up the Swedenborg inheritance left him, and soon

* For the first New-Church ordination in the world in 1788 in London, that
of James Hindmarsh, father of Robert, see latter 's Rise and Progress, pp. 70, 71.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 41

began his half -century of devotion to the New Church. An
early graduate of the Maryland University, and an earnest
medical student, he became superintendent of the Maryland
Hospital for the Insane, where his gentleness of spirit, ex-
traordinary power of self-control, and quick intuition in
emergencies made him ideal in service to disordered minds.
We knew him in his palmy days, crowned with success in his
well-equipped buildings, and happy in a field of service
thickly strewn with thorns.

Dr. Fonerden became physician to Mr. Johns Hopkins
(1795-1873) who looked up to his scholarship, and admired
his idealism; and the Doctor, in return, heartily appreciated
the merchant's business ability. Both men were Union
soldiers in the Civil War. Fonerden was an inspirer in the
founding of the Johns Hopkins University with its Hospital,
which I have heard Oxford professors speak of as the su-
preme educational institution in America, their ideal being
post-graduate training in science (see Rev. Willard G. Day
on Fonerden and Hopkins in New-Church Messenger, March
2, 1910, pp. 135, 136).

Hargrove solidified the Baltimore Society, and gave forty-
two devoted years to the Church. Judge Young came over
the Alleghanies in 1803 to receive baptism from him, and
made his own vocation a noble exponent of his religion for
thirty-one years. Hargrove writes in very interesting detail
of his own missionary journey of five hundred miles in 1806,
of his stage-coach perils when crossing the mountains, of the
warm hospitality of his friends including Judge Young, and
adds: "I baptized seventy-eight souls" (Hindmarsh's Rise
and Progress, page 187) . At the first meeting of the General
Convention of the New Jerusalem at Philadelphia in 1817, he
preached the sermon; he was appointed president of that body,
and served ten years, although not continuously.

III. The first New-Church Liturgy issued in America
came forth from a Bahimore press under Samuel and John
Adams in 1792. It contained a Calendar for daily Scriptural
reading. Prayers, a Creed, Catechism, Forms for the Adminis-
tration of the Sacraments, and Hymns by the Rev. Joseph
Proud. Except that the prayers were for an American Presi-

42 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

dent in place of King George III, the book was a reprint of
the English Liturgy. The Massachusetts New-Church Union
owns an American copy, with an autograph inscription by
Rev. Willard Hinkley stating the cost of the edition as
1600.00. And we read elsewhere that Counsellor Robert
Carter of Nomany Hall, Lancaster County, Virginia, after
emancipating nearly four thousand slaves, prepared to have
one thousand copies of the Liturgy printed at his own expense
for the use of the members of the New Church {New-church-
man, voL i, page 400).

IV. The first American New-Church periodical began
its existence in Baltimore. It was a duodecimo of sixteen
pages issued fortnightly, edited by John Hargrove, and
printed by Warner and Hanna. Starting on August 1, 1801,
it closed its career on October 31 of the same year. I have
studied the copy in the library of the Massachusetts New-
Church Union which bears at the head the autograph " Jno.
Hargrove" in clear, bold chirography. It is entitled The
Temple of Truth, and is described as " A Vindication of
various passages and doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, lately
impeached in a Deistical publication of Philadelphia entitled.
The Temple of Reason."'

The latter attempted by destructive criticism the disintegra-
tion of the letter of Scripture, after the manner of Voltaire
and Tom Paine, denying miracles, and searching for dis-
crepancies. Mr. Hargrove, in righteous indignation, sent
for publication in The Temple of Reason one defensive reply
after another, which Mr. Driscoll declined to insert, while
commenting upon them editorially in misleading fashion;
whereupon Mr. Hargrove published the entire debate in his
own periodical, which sprang into existence in defence of the
Bible. Both men stood with controversial lance in hand:
Mr. Hargrove, warm and self- restrained ; Mr. Driscoll, warm
and sarcastic, calling his adversary " our reverend and Jeru-
salem Rabbi." Finally, Mr. Hargrove, for financial reasons,
discontinued his little periodical after devoting the last two
numbers to the spiritual exposition of remarkable Scripture
passages. Other matter had appeared in minor degree —
foreign news, occasional poetry, and a bit of science. When

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 43

the hostile Philadelphia editor said in his Temple of Reason:
" From the politics of The Temple of Truth no man can learn
whether the Editor be a Republican or a Tory," Hargrove
replied in his own periodical, page 147:

" 1st. The Temple of Truth was never intended to be a po-
litical vehicle; but chiefly to oppose mere deism.

" 2d. The Editors conceive that religion and politics are
two distinct things, at least they are so in the United States,
and may they long continue so ; and hence they conclude and
know by experience, that men may be good Republicans and
good Christians at the same time."

The periodical closes with a valedictory, in which the
editor says:

'' The serious truths that have occupied the chief depart-
ment of The Temple are too rational for the mere fanatic,
and too spiritual for the mere deist; and hence these formid-
able opponents, though naturally at variance one with the
other, have cordially harmonized like Herod and Pontius
Pilate of old, to condemn Jesus (or genuine truth), and
rather argue that Barabbas, that robber and murderer (or
the adulterated reason of mere deism) should be released
unto them."

Mr. Hargrove was now fifty-one years of age with eight
children. Hannah England, whom he had married in 1776,
had recently been called to the other world. She had stood
nobly by him and by the Church when his espousal of our
faith in 1797 had cost him many pulpits, and had otherwise
injured him financially. His disinterestedness is shown by
the fact that he preached from 1798 to 1835 without compen-
sation, and that he published The Temple of Truth at a loss.
Hargrove's picture which lies before me reveals an expan-
sive forehead suggesting high intelligence, and lips express-
ing firmness tempered with benevolence. He was happy in
doing good, and was gratified that among subscribers to his
periodical were about one hundred and eighty of the most
enlightened members of other denominations in Baltimore,
who, he says, " have nobly conquered the infernal spirits of
bigotry and sectarian prejudice."

The Roman Catholic Bishop, John Carroll, was among

44 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

these enlightened subscribers, and remained Hargrove's warm
friend to the end, their Irish ancestry giving them racial
sympathy. The Rev. Willard Hinkley told me that his
grandfather (John Hargrove) received from the Bishop his
portrait as a mark of esteem. The American-born John
Carroll was educated at the Jesuit college of Liege, Belgium,
became in 1769 its professor of theology and philosophy,
traveled extensively abroad, warmly espoused the Colonial
cause, and was on his return appointed, in 1776, member
of a government mission to secure aid or neutrality from
Canada. Benjamin Franklin was a co-member, and a cordial
friendship sprang up between the Jesuitically-trained bishop
and our theologically latitudinarian philosopher. Franklin's
large influence abroad was used to aid in effectively bringing
about a cessation of the dependence on London of the Roman
Catholics here, and to bring them into direct connection with
Rome. This Carroll-Franklin friendship between men in
many respects the antipodes of each other is a credit to both.
And the Carroll-Hargrove friendship is equally pleasant to
contemplate. There were two Johns: John Carroll, who rose
to be the first Roman Catholic bishop and archbishop in
America ; John Hargrove, who rose to be the first New-Church
clergyman here; and each kind of office was a power in its
way.

Thomas Jefferson, after his inauguration as President of
the United States on March 4, 1801, received at once a com-
munication in which, " with singular pleasure and profound
respect," the Minister and the acting Committee of the New
Jerusalem Church in Baltimore, beg leave to congratulate
him on his accession to the Chief Magistracy of their beloved
country — "a country hitherto eminently favored by the
Divine Providence with a peculiar degree of civil and re-
ligious liberty."

President Jefferson within a week addressed the Rev. John
Hargrove in reply to the Baltimore letter, expressing thanks
for its congratulations, recognizing the turbulence in the East-
em world, seconding the hope for peace, progress, and the
promotion of brotherly kindness toward those who differ
from us in opinion, and ending with the words:

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 45

" The philanthropy which breathes through the several ex-
pressions of your letter is a pledge that you will endeavour
to diffuse the sentiments of benevolence among our fellow-
men, and to inculcate the important truth that they promote
their own happiness by nourishing kind and friendly dis-
positions toward others.

Commending your endeavours to the being in whose hands
we are, I beg you to accept assurancies of my perfect con-
sideration and respect. Thomas Jefferson."

President Thomas Jefferson, together with one hundred
members of Congress, in the Capitol on Monday, December
26, 1802, heard a sermon on "The Leading Doctrines of
the New Jerusalem Church" delivered by Rev. John Har-
grove, who was visiting Washington for the first time. He
liad come at the invitation of the New-Church people, who
failed to obtain the promised use of the Treasury building;
whereupon, the Chaplain of the Senate, whom Hargrove had
gone to hear, secured for him the use of the Capitol rotunda.
Jefferson came, being a man greatly given to Bible study,
as his much annotated copy of the Gospels in the Natibnal
Museum will testify. On December 25, 1804, Hargrove
delivered a sermon on "The Second Coming of Christ" be-
fore both Houses of Congress (see Hindmarsh's Rise and
Progress, pp. 180,181, with footnote).

V. At Baltimore was erected the first House of Worship
on our continent to be consecrated to the worship of the Lord
Jesus Christ in His Glorified Humanity as the One Only
God of Heaven and Earth. The building was of brick, about
thirty-two by forty feet, and stood on the south-west comer of
Baltimore and Exeter Streets. Its facade was pierced by a
door flanked by large windows, each having a smaller one
above, all capped by round arches. There were three rect-
angular windows on each side. The picture of it before me
was composed from existing records, and from the personal
memory of contemporaries.

On Sunday, January 2, 1800, the Temple dedication took
place. A hundred years later, we enjoyed the centennial
celebration, seeing the very Bible, printed in 1792, out of
which Mr. Hargrove read, and the old mahogany chair on

46 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

which he sat. The social life brought together dear early
friends and their descendants — the Reeses, Ahrenses, Foner-
dens, Brickmans, Scotts, and Robbs.

This Baltimore Church Centennial of 1900 was enriched
by addresses from Rev. James Reed, Rev. Frank Sewall, and
others. The Rev. Willard Hall Hinkley (1831-1909),
grandson of Rev. John Hargrove, fittingly contributed family
reminiscences, historical data, and religious material. He
himself served the Church thirty-six years, including valu-
able missionary work.

I knew Mr. Hinkley for long years beginning in the happy
old days of the Maryland Association; witnessing in 1865
his ordination into the New-Church ministry by Rev. Abiel
Silver; observing his brotherliness at the Philadelphia Scott-
Robb Silver Wedding in February, 1866; renewing the pleas-
ant Hinkley acquaintance in Brookline, and especially re-
calling the happy celebration in 1892 of his decade of pulpit
service there; continuing the social intercourse with him and
his valued wife — Rebecca Robb Hinkley — at Savin Hill —
both steadfast in regard, never forgetting their friends. Five
of their six little olive plants grew up and were transplanted
to the better world; but the parents' religious faith was with-
out bitterness. The father has gladly welcomed his daughter
Meta in the other life. While almost on the border land, she
wrote in 1918 a little brochure which is in print, The Birth of a
World, revealing her recognition of new spiritual forces, her
clear insight into their value, and her fervent desire for their
working success in the hearts of men. Meta will tell her
father of his wife, and their descendants, who care so warmly
for the spiritual matters dear to him. I append a list of six
New-Church generations in lineal descent:

i. Rev. John Hargrove married Hannah England,
ii. Hannah Hargrove married Edward Hinkley.

iii. Rev. Willard Hall Hinkley married Rebecca Robb.

iv. Frank Hinkley married Mabel Ford.
V. Willard H. Hinkley, Jr., married Ann Ledegar.

vi. The little child of Willard and Ann at St. Paul,
Minnesota, is the latest descendant of Rev. John Hargrove,
who was born in 1750.

IV

JONATHAN CHAPMAN
THE PICTURESQUE SOWER OF TWOFOLD SEED

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her lofty arms to pray.

— Joyce Kilmer on Trees.

The surname of Jonathan Chapman (177^1847) has
faded into insignificance. In vain did his progenitors hand
it down as his inheritance; the patronymic became replaced.
Even the baptismal name changed to a familiar abbreviation
and he became affectionately known by the descriptive
appellation " Johnny Appleseed." He was a hardy pioneer, a
zealous orchardist, a lover of children, an altruistic citizen, a
peripatetic New-Church library, and a live Evangelist.

Had he been reared under pagan skies he would assuredly
have erected an altar to the goddess Pomona as his pro-
tecting deity, so strongly is his lifestory associated with the
fragrance of early apple blossoms, and the blushing beauty
of ripening fruit; with the gracious promise of spring, and the
glad fruition of autumn. Had he dwelt in India, the Brah-
mins and Jainists would have commended his vegetarianism
and his sensitive regard for animal life in refusing even in
self-defence to kill the wasp which had cunningly ensconced
itself under his coat in ambush for attack. Had organized
Animal Rescue Leagues existed -in his day they would have
honored him for his devotion to abandoned horses, worn out
by the long hard trek of settlers pushing westward; these he
pastured, protected, and pensioned. One writer compares him
to St. Francis of Assissi, because of his comradeship with

48 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

animal creatures, declaring also that both were wedded to
Lady Poverty. Appleseed, however, was not consciously an
ascetic.

St. Francis gloried in rags for his attire and Johnny Apple-
seed reduced the life of the body to its simplest terms. This
modern hermit of the wilderness is described as a small, wiry
man of restless activity, long-haired, unshaven, with " keen
black eyes that sparkled with peculiar brightness." He was
often barefooted, wore a tin pot for a hat, and his chief
garment in later years was a coffeesack having three apertures
through which his head and arms emerged. Because of his
fidelity to duty and his generally unkempt condition he has
been compared to St. Anthony of Africa ; but I see no kinship
between disheveled hair and neglected garb on the one hand
and saintliness on the other. We could wish that this al-
truistic disciple of Pomona had, in boyhood, received train-
ing in nicety of raiment from some orderly Puritan dame or
neat Quakeress; and that, in adult life, he had indulged in
occasional fits of self-consciousness whereby he could have
detached himself from himself and could have seen himself
in a mirror as others saw him; and could have cultivated an
attire which would have given pleasure to the beholder. Per-
petual self-oblivion is not well.

The picturesqueness and idiosyncrasies of Johnny Apple-
seed attracted the attention of secular periodicals. Mr. W.
D. Haley, in Harpers New Monthly Magazine, November,
1871, gives a circumstantial narrative of the orchardist
which carries conviction of its authenticity. He was born in
Boston in 1775, and, with no antecedant history available,
springs into notice in 1801 when he is first traced in central
Ohio, east of Columbus. He was near Licking Creek with a
horseload of apple seeds which he planted in various regions,
furnishing the first orchard for a man named Isaac Stodden.
In 1806, with two canoes lashed together, he went up the Ohio
river to Marietta, along the Muskingham river to Coshocton,
next following the Mohican and Black Fork rivers, planting
nurseries as he voyaged. Sometimes he carried his leathern
bags of seeds on his shoulders. His exercise of pomological
zeal covered more than forty years' time and extended over

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 49

thousands of square miles of territory stretching from the
Ohio River to the Great Lakes and westward to Indiana. He
obtained seeds from the cider presses of Dutch farmers.

Picture to yourself the frontier streams bordered with rank
and tangled grass, made beautiful with the morning glory
and sweet pea, and made terrifying with venomous reptiles.
The heavily wooded hills invite the wanderer to the refreshing
coolness of their shade, but are coverts for the growling bear,
the ravenous wolf, and the ferocious wild hog. The under-
growth presents an abattis bristling with thorns to check
the pioneer's passage. The Redmen, wrought up to fierce
hostility against the intrusive whites, are ready to torture and
kill. This is Mr. Haley's background of the picture on which
is projected the figure of the intrepid, kindly horticulturist
who escapes the wild beasts, forgives the rattlesnakes, and
awes the Indians by his fortitude in bearing pain. When,
at the surrender of Gen. William Hull at Detroit in 1812, the
exultant Indians were ready to renew their murderous raids
even upon defenceless women and children, Johnny Apple-
seed came to the rescue. This "wild-looking herald of
danger" rushed across the land day and night, denied him-
self food and rest, and with piercing voice warned the settlers
to rush to their blockhouses for defence. At every cabin
door he gave this message:

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed
me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm
in the forest; for, behold, the tribes of the heathen are round
about your doors, and a devouring flame followeth after
them" {Harpers, p. 833).

The most valuable documentary evidence obtainable re-
garding the orchardist is a contemporaneous descriptive
narrative which depicts him as holding his tree-planting
eff"orts quite secondary, and as primarily a sower of spiritual
seed. In 1822, at the fifth meeting of the General Convention
of the New Jerusalem held at Philadelphia under the presi-
dency of Rev. John Hargrove, a report was read of Apple-
seed's present career. He was in the full tide of activity,
with twenty-five years of zealous propaganda before him. He
was an itinerant lay missionary, announcing the glories of the

50 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

New Jerusalem with burning earnestness, and distributing
pages out of Swedenborg's works. Unable to carry many-
heavy volumes at once, he scattered portions as leaflets,
circulating them in rotation and collecting them for redistri-
bution to be read backward if necessary. He declared that
his avowed purpose in planting nurseries was to give him the
opportunity to spread New-Church doctrines throughout the
western country.

" On entering a log cabin he would throw himself down on
the floor, open his precious package of books, ask the people
if they would have some ' news right fresh from Heaven,'
and then proceed to read aloud the strange Gospel to the
astonished family around the hearthstone . . ." (Odhner's
Annals of the New Church, pp. 533, 534).

In 1847 this sower of twofold seed completed his good
work in this life. He was now seventy-two. He entered a
cabin near Fort Wayne in northern Indiana, and was soon
found facing the western sun, his face irradiated with a glory
not of this world, and thus he passed on to the other life.

Our New-Church clergyman, Rev. J. R. Hibbard (1815-
1894) knew personally Illinois residents who in 1835 became
converts to our faith through Johnny Appleseed, and who
retained their early fervor {New Jerusalem Messenger, 1835,
page 108). I have been under two New-Church roofs where
the picturesque pioneer was often a guest. The first was that
of Mrs. Israel D. Wagar, a lady in the beautiful autumn of
life with a long perspective in the past rich in reminiscences.
She was the mother of Mrs. Myron G. Browne, and the
grandmother of Mrs. Clyde W. Broomell. Mrs. Wagar, at
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1908, told me of Johnny Appleseed and
his noble work. Further testimony from living lips that had
talked with him was gleaned in 1914 at the Kinmont-Eckstein
home in Glendale, Ohio. Dwellers in both houses testified
to his easy acceptance of untoward physical conditions, to his
triumph of spirit over matter, to his unworldly faith that
heaven would take care of him, to the Master's burning
message on his lips. In recalling the radiance of his spirit,
these ladies had lost all remembrance of his uncouth appear-
ance. They heard from him irregularly in his absence,

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 51

and his coming was often unexpected. Their exclamation of
surprise that he was still alive was answered by a merry
quip.

In a Chicago daily of 1891 appeared a poem dedicated to
the American Horticultural Society. After describing this
seed-planter as a prophet of the wilderness, and a sceptre of
the solitudes, it continues:

A druid of the valley, but as worldless as the wave,

Scorning comfort, seeking nothing for the good things that he gave —

A poor old plodding pilgrim of a brave unselfish breed,

God showed the way and shod the feet of Johnny Appleseed.

A song for Johnny Appleseed, who left a living trail

Of beauty everywhere he went, in mountain and in vale;

Thro' many a vanished summer sang the birds and hummed the bees

Amid the bending blossoms of his broad old apple trees.

A health to Johnny Appleseed! and may his glory be

Regrafted in the years to come on Life's eternal tree.

JOSEPH HILLER
THE EARLIEST NEWCHURCHMAN IN NEW ENGLAND

Major Joseph Hiller was bom in 1748 in Salem, Mass.
His great-grandfather of the same name came from Watford,
near London, and settled in Boston in 1677. The younger
Joseph served in the War of Independence, and in 1789 was
appointed by President Washington the first collector of
revenues at Salem under the new Federal Constitution — a
position which he held through Adams's administration. You
may see today in the Essex Institute at Salem the impression
in wax of his official seal; on one side the head of Washington
in profile; on the reverse side Hiller's monogram in graceful
script with a floating knot of ribbon above, and below the
words: "Major, Revolutionary officer (1748-1814), first
collector under new government for twelve years." On the
Custom House wall hangs his portrait.

The atmosphere at Salem had been permeated with
Puritanism for nearly two centuries, since the Rev. Francis
Higginson, a nonconformist, had established an Orthodox
Congregational church in 1629. How did young Hiller dis-
cover our faith? According to the testimony of Thomas
Worcester, who knew Hiller's daughter and whose own life
for nineteen years was contemporaneous with that of Hiller,
the latter learned of and accepted the teachings of the New
Church through James Glen's Boston visit and lectures in
1784. William A. Wellman (1805-1878), who entered the
Salem Custom House four years after Hiller's departure from
this life and who married his granddaughter, says of him :

" Major Hiller was unquestionably one of the very earliest
readers of the doctrines in this country, and he did much

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 53

for the spread of a knowledge of them within the circle of his
acquaintance. He was widely known and greatly respected;
he was in the highest sense a Christian gentleman; a person
of culture; and of some considerable scientific attainment.
... I have now in my possession some of the volumes
Major Hiller imported from London, long before any were
imported in this country." * All this testimony of the pri-
ority of Hiller's claim to New-Church knowledge in New
England is strong. Hiller had previously married a Salem
damsel, Margaret Cleveland, whose religious nature was
congenial to that of her husband, and who shared his doubts.
Together they read Heaven and Hell, and before half complet-
ing it they were satisfied that it contained the truth. This
was the beginning of a complete acceptance of its message.

Major Hiller's third child, Margaret, was born in 1775.
She was a noble woman, spiritual-minded and devotional,
inheriting her father's intelligence and religious courage.
Her kinsmen gave characteristic glimpses of her youth. She
would make an oratory of the attic for private meditations,
or rise early to kneel by the fire with the large family Bible
before her. Her father's quiet home services strengthened
her; his imported New-Church books gave her aid. "Her
habitual study of the Scriptures, and her longing to know their
meaning, rendered the new explanations delightful; a new
life-study opened to her."

As another English strand is interwoven with that of Hiller,
we will turn to John Prescott who migrated about 1640 from
Lancashire and finally established himself at Lancaster,
Massachusetts, then on the frontier of civilization. It was
subject to incursions from the redskins with their tomahawk
and scalping knife. But this white man knew how to produce
a psychological effect.

" John was a sturdy, strong man with a stern countenance,
and, whenever he had a difficulty with the Indians, clothed
himself with his coat of armor, helmet, cuirass and gorget,
which gave him a fierce and frightful appearance." He died
in 1683.

John's descendant, Oliver Prescott (1731-1804), a grad-

* Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem,
Boston, 1869. See pp. 10, 42, 43,

54 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

uate of Harvard in ] 750, became an eminent physician with
a medical degree, honoris causa, from his Ahna Mater. He
rose to the position of third major general of militia in 1778,
and subsequently served as county judge of probate for fifteen
years. He was brother of Col. William Prescott of Bunker
Hill, and uncle of Prescott, the historian.

Margaret Hiller married Judge Oliver Prescott's son Sam-
uel in 1804. The embargo and the war of 1812 ruined them
financially, but they preserved in their Boston home the riches
of their religious faith. She wrote an able book in elucidation
of the New Church published in Boston in 1816, entitled
Religion and Philosophy United. It sets forth at the opening
the great limitations of the inductive method in reaching
toward spiritual truth, and the need of Revelation to furnish
first principles. And it grasps quite a wide range of thought.
I have had access to the reprint, London and Boston, 1856,
to be found in the Harvard University Library, together with
a memoir of her by her son. (See also New Jerusalem Maga-
zine, vol. xxxi, page iii).

The son of Samuel and Margaret Prescott shall take prece-
dence of the older, brilliantly endowed daughter. He was
named Oliver, and he added by legal enactment his mother's
good old family name, and became known as Rev. 0. Pres-
cott Hiller. She passed to the other life in 1841, the year
of his ordination, and it would have delighted his mother's
heart could she have foreseen his twenty-nine years of conse-
crated service {Precursor, vol. iii, page 16; New Jerusalem
Messenger, vol. Iv, page 155).

Mr. Hiller's love of travel and fondness for social life
found expression in his church work abroad after his Cin-
cinnati pulpit ministrations in 1843-1848 and his remarkable
missionary labors including the baptism of one hundred and
twenty-one persons within a year {Western Convention Re-
ports for 1843, page 57). He served his co-religionists in
Scotland, sojourned in Ireland, and toured extensively on the
continent. We hear of him at the home of Le Boys des
Guays at St. Amand, France, among a congenial little group
of men; as a warmly welcomed guest at Florence, Italy, of
Hiram Powers, the sculptor; at Tiibingen, Germany, under

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 55

the roof of Dr. Immanuel Tafel, who was maintaining a
perfect network of communication by letter with New-Church-
men over the world {New Jerusalem Magazine, vol. xxi, page
198; vol. xxii, page 29).

In 1868, eleven American New-Church people named Cut-
ler, Dunbar, Carter, Parsons and Silver secured a furnished
house for the month of May at 29 Upper Berkeley Street near
Hyde Park, London. At the Cross Street Church we heard
Rev. 0. Prescott Hiller in a highly interesting extemporaneous
address, and the Rev. David G. Goyder in a strongly de-
votional sermon. The latter, ordained in 1822, was ripe in
years after long and varied service. We visited Islington
Chapel, a stone edifice with stained glass, mosaic floor, and
rich pews, used as a New-Church Theological School. We
twice heard Dr. Jonathan Bayley at Argyle Square, where he
gathered large numbers. I should describe him as the
Chauncey Giles of England. The service preceding his ser-
mon covered seventy minutes, comprising three prayers, four
chants, earnest congregational singing of hymns, and much
classical music including the magnificent Gloria from Mo-
zart's Twelfth Mass, sung by a choir of twenty voices. Dr.
Bayley, who had been ordained thirty-two years earlier, now
preached extemporaneously with clearness, ease, and effective
force. He warmly welcomed us, called upon us, gave us
names of New-Church officials at the Kensington Museum and
the National Gallery, and otherwise extended courteous aid
in our sightseeing.

Rev. 0. Prescott Hiller had married in 1864 Miss Emma
Anne Stokes of London. Those who knew her pronounce
her clever, bright, and possessing much personal charm. She
was a graduate of Queen's College, London, founded in 1848.
It was the first institution of that kind for women in the
world, our Mount Holyoke not attaining the rank of college
until later. The co-educational Oberlin became a college in
1850. Queen's College was named in recognition of Queen
Victoria's part in its birth. Frederick D. Maurice had much
to do with its founding, and Rev. Charles Kingsley was one
of its professors — "a thoroughly stimulating teacher . . .
his influence on men rather consisting in inducing them to

56 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

think for themselves than in leading them to adopt his
own views." Both were Cambridge men (see Encyclopaedia
Britannica) .

In 1866 the Rev. 0. Prescott Hiller brought his English
wife to see his American kinsmen; and in the second year of
the World War their two children, Mr. Addison Prescott
Hiller and Miss Margaret Prescott Hiller, sailed for this
country on the White Star steamship, Arabic, which was
torpedoed by a German submarine on August 19, 1915. The
Hillers, after severe exposure, thrilling danger and much
hardship, were rescued, and returned to England, but
heroically ventured a second time. They settled in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, contributing scholarship and social
charm; the son was ordained into the New-Church ministry
in 1918.

We now return to the Rev. 0. Prescott Hiller' s mother.
Surely one of the most potent of her missionary efforts was
her loan of Swedenborg's books to a highly prepossessing
young man of twenty named William A. Wellman. Her
gifted daughter Susan was then sixteen. Eight years later
he was baptized into our faith, soon after which, in 1833,
followed the marriage of the two young people.

Mr. Francis Phelps has written of Susan Prescott Wellman's
musical aid vocally and instrumentally at the Swedenborg-
study-class he called together in 1836. Mrs. Nathanael C.
Towle of Washington has told me of her exceedingly brilliant
letters received during a long correspondence. Mrs.
Catherine Worcester Thacher gratefully remembered Mrs.
Wellman's comrade-like recognition of little folk.

At the close of fifteen years of happy married life, Mrs.
Wellman was called by the Good Father to His home, leaving
six children. The illness was sudden and unexpected. Mar-
garet Gary, in an unpublished letter lying before me dated
April 12, 1848, writes feelingly of this recent loss. She tells
how the Chandlers, Philbricks, and Wilkinses spontaneously
opened their hearts and their homes to the motherless Well-
man children during the readjustment of the bereaved house-
hold; and how they witnessed the result of Mrs. Welhnan's
beautiful motherhood. The boy of eleven tried to drown his

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 57

sorrow by helpfulness to others ; the boy of nine insisted on ob-
serving the bed-time hour which his mother had prescribed,
and of saying his little prayer alone. The boy of seven, when
warned against getting ill from dampness, said, "I would like
to be sick if it would have taken mother's pains from her."
The little one of five, overhearing the sad news suddenly, had
bravely refrained from "crying right out." The only daugh-
ter among five sons, Ellen Margaret, was the most versatile
and brilliantly endowed person with whom I ever came into
personal association, inheriting evidently her mother's gifts
in conversation and epistolary ability.

It is pleasant at this point to give a direct genealogical line
of six New-Church generations:

i. Major Joseph Hiller married Margaret Cleveland.

ii. Margaret Hiller married Samuel Jackson Prescott.

iii. Susan Prescott married William A. Wellman.

iv. Joseph Hiller Wellman married Ellen Crowell.

V. Hiller Wellman married Emily Whiston.

vi. Their son Bertram, of Springfield, Massachusetts, is
the great-great-great-grandson of Major Joseph Hiller, who
was bom in 1748.

VI

THE RAINBOW-HUED STORY OF
MARGARET GARY

Margaret Graves Gary discovered the Writings of Sw*>-
denborg at twenty-one, and she served our faith thereafter for
seventy-two years. Born on the island of St. Kitts, now Saint
Christopher, the year before the Declaration of Independence
in the Golonies, this little West Indian maiden was a British
subject, but grew up to live under the Stars and Stripes, and
to be a pioneer and a chronicler for the New Church. Here
is her picture of her home life of luxury and ease:

" Every evening after tea the negroes assembled in the open
space before the west gallery, each bringing a bundle of
sticks for fuel for the kitchen, the men on one side, the
women on the other, and an elderly man as a leader in prayer
between them, and answered to their names as the list was
called. Then they knelt reverently and joined in prayer,
kissed the ground, and, rising, sang a hymn and departed."

Margaret's grandfather, — Samuel Gary (1713-1769) —
a Harvard graduate, rose to the position of ship owner and
captain. He married in 1741 Margaret, aged twenty-two,
the daughter of Thomas Graves of Gharlestown, who brought
an inheritance of three hundred and sixty-five acres in
Ghelsea.

Let us peruse a little of this grandmother's diary, and ask
if she transmitted any qualities to the Margaret of our sketch.
She writes at Ghelsea in the absence of her sea-faring hus-
band:

" May 24, 1742. This day I am taking the care of a
family upon me. Lord, grant that I may not be so taken up
with the world as to neglect my great concern.

June 21, 1742. This day I gave myself up to the Lord in

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 59

an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten. Lord, give
me grace to live up to the profession that I have now made.

September 20, 1742. This day God was pleased to appear
for me in a wonderful manner, in a time of great difficulty and
distress, and make me the living mother of a living and
perfect child.

What shall I render to thee for all thy goodness and mercy
vouchsafed to me?

Jan. 2, 1743. This day I was in great danger of being con-
sumed by fire, but the Lord was pleased to appear for me, and
wonderfully to put a stop to it.

June 3, 1744. This day we had a dreadful shock of an
earthquake. Lord, grant that the surprise I was in may make
me careful to prepare to meet my Judge."

This diarist was brave and decisive in spirit; and when a
robber entered her house one night, she was aroused, threw
on a wrapper, and faced him in the entry; " he was so alarmed
at her sudden appearance and resolute manner that he hastily
retreated."

Margaret's other grandmother, Sarah Tyler Gray, was
early deprived by death of her husband, Ellis Gray, of
Boston; and she is thus described in Mr. Webster's church
in North Square after the bells had done chiming one Sunday
morning in 1753:

"A widow indeed carrying up a sweet little baby, in the
usual white robe, but unusually ornamented with little black
bows all up and down its dress. The Rev. Mr. Welstead
takes it in his arms, and giving ' the outward sign of an inward
and spiritual gift,' with the name of Sally and the blessing,
restores her to her mother's arms, while the audience, deeply
interested, silently join their prayers and blessings."

Thus is set forth the infant christening of our Margaret
Gary's mother. When Margaret's father, Samuel Gary, first
saw, at a ball, this Sally Gray, now grown to a fair maiden of
eighteen, he was instantly and vitally interested in her. He
is thus described, being now twenty-nine, on his visit to
Boston:

" He had a black man with him, who frequently drove a
chaise in which he took his rides; dressed elegantly; was per-

60 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

fectly easy in his circumstances; and had that perfect ease
and knowledge of the world, which, with good manners,
betokens a gentleman."

Young Gary was a Harvard graduate, and had received
from his father one thousand pounds with which he sailed
for the West Indies and began sugar raising at St. Kitts,
Grenada, with eighty slaves. He and Sally Gray were soon
betrothed, the marriage being consummated in 1772. Their
home for eighteen or nineteen years was Grenada in the
West Indies, and here the Margaret of our sketch was bom
in 1775. She has left a ground-plan of their home showing
spacious rooms of generous variety and abundant galleries
or verandas.

Little Margaret Gary in 1779, was sent to England for
ten years' absence at boarding school. The sailing master,
Gaptain Gox, was a personal friend, and the child had an
immediate lady attendant. Soon after her arrival, although
only live years old, she opened the dancing master's ball in
a minuet with a small boy. She learned various cotillion
steps — " contre-temps, glissade, rigadoon," In addition to
the utilitarian branches, she studied music, drawing, poetry,
astronomy, history, flowers and filigree. Lessons in embroid-
ery enabled her after many tears to complete a sampler in
minute stitches containing rows of letters and ten lines of
Rowe's poetry on the True End of Education. It was framed
and sent home.

We get pictures of Margaret and her brother in Alice
Morse Earle's Child-Life in Colonial Days. When eight years
old, Charles Gary's London portrait showed the abandonment
of the cocked hat, and the adoption of a simpler form of
head covering, with a broad white flowing collar, and buttoned
waistcoat. In Margaret's portrait in 1781 at six years of age,
" the eyes and half-smile are charmingly engaging." At
fourteen, her half-figure portrait is painted. Her broad-
brimmed hat trimmed with feathers is seen above her abun-
dant and very dark flowing hair. She has large expressive
black eyes, and an exceedingly erect figure.

We cannot estimate the depth and tenacity of Margaret's
religious nature unless we take into consideration the allur-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 61

ing attractions of the eighteenth-century life which she was
to see on so many sides. She describes years later, another
brother, Samuel, who had followed her to England for edu-
cational training, as he appeared at the time of their return
together:

" My brother, though only sixteen, was a man in dress and
manners. There was less simplicity in dress in those days,
1789. He had his gold watch; hair dressed, frizzled and
curled at the sides with powder; small-clothes, with knee-
buckles (pantaloons had not made their appearance) ; silk
stockings, and shoes with buckles, — a tall and handsome
person. He was perfect in my eyes; sometimes finding fault
with me, but I never found anything amiss with him." *

Margaret's return at fourteen with her brothers to her West
Indian home was in 1789, her eager father early sighting her
ship through a spy-glass and her mother's heart yearning for
her arrival. During her ten years' absence the American
Revolution had ended. Although Mr. Gary was a British
subject, he sympathized with the colonists, and at one time
harbored some American sea-captains, " so that the governor
threatened to send him to London and have him put in the
Tower and punished as a rebel." And at Cornwallis's sur-
render, a friendly monitor warned Mr. Gary to conceal his
pleasure by seclusion and silence.

Nothing of great moment occurred in Margaret's life in
the next two years. She fell into quiet useful ways in the
household, and at the end of that time — in 1791 — they all
moved to the precious Gary homestead with its three hundred
and sixty acres at Chelsea. The distance to Boston was six
miles by Maiden bridge, or by sailboat. Snow once cut off
visitors for six weeks, their horses combating the roads in
vain. In 1792 occurred an insurrection at Grenada, W. I.,
resulting in business losses which made Mr. Gary permanently
a poor man.

Retrenchments in the Gary household resulted from the
financial losses. The children increased in an inverse ratio

* All quotations heretofore given, together with much else, are derived from
a privately printed little volume issued in 1891 by the Riverside Press entitled
The Cary Letters by C. G. C. A copy is accessible in the Boston New Church
Book Rooms.

62 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

until there were fifteen, whose plain, old-fashioned names lie
before me. Margaret was the second ; she knew boys, for she
had nine brothers, to several of whom she served as instruct-
ress and governess. Her London-bred brother fitted two for
Harvard. Her niece, Elizabeth Cabot Gary, married in 1850
Professor Louis Agassiz, the great Swiss scientist who proved
precious beyond value to Harvard. She won the heart of her
stepson, Alexander Agassiz, a lad of fifteen, and she fostered
higher educational advantages for girls at large.

Miss Gary's kaleidoscopic life shifts from gravity to
gaiety. During a visit in 1815 at Mrs. Hill's, she is present
at the great Peace Ball in recognition of the termination of
our second war with Great Britian. Urged to attend this
Terpsichorean jubilee, her only record is this:

" All very splendid. Laid a weary head on a soft pillow
a little before three in the morning."

A very different social experience also came to Miss Gary.
She was a member of a bridal party in Boston where she was
presented to the future father of Queen Victoria ; and she was
accorded the same princely salute from the Duke of Kent as
that given to the bride.

And now came into Margaret Gary's life an element of
transcendent importance. After browsing in her father's
library on miscellaneous religious literature from Orthodox
to liberal, she came into a questioning frame of mind. And
she records that on the first Sabbath in June, 1796, she had
her first perception of the doctrine of the Lord during her
Bible reading. Swedenborg says:

"The Lord does not openly teach truths to any one, but
through good leads him to think what is true, and also, un-
known to man, inspires the new perception and thence the
choice that this is true because the Word declares, and be-
cause the latter squares with it" {Arcana Coelestia, No.
5952).

In June, 1796, the day after that on which the flash-like
conviction of the Deity of Jesus Christ entered Margaret's
soul, the works of Swedenborg were introduced to her
attention. Seventy years later she was to receive the Holy
Supper with six hundred other communicants at the Boston

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 63

Church of the New Jerusalem; and in her old age she con-
trasted these two occasions. " I was myself present at this
meeting of the General Convention in 1866, and can testify-
to the feeling of devotion consequent upon the presence of so
many participating together in the holiest act of worship."

Away back in 1819 Miss Gary writes to her sister:

"I come to you, my beloved Ann, refreshed by reading
a few chapters in my little Bible, and a few pages of exposition
by Swedenborg. Let none rest satisfied with only the re-
sources of their own minds, however faithful memory may
be, and its use is of the utmost importance. We want fresh
supplies to carry us forward in the path we have chosen. It
is the daily bread which nourishes,"

Miss Gary met in 1796 the Rev. William Hill, a clergyman
of the Church of England, but a very earnest New Church-
man, two years after he took up his residence in or near
Boston; and through him she received the doctrines. The
Gary family letters show that a warm friendship sprang up
between Margaret and Mrs. Hill, which continued forty
years.

The story of Margaret Gary was indeed rainbow-hued.
Light, in falling upon her life, came somehow through a
prism, which gave color and variety to everything. Up to
seventeen she was a child of luxury at home, but her training
at the hearthstone stimulated her heart for good. She might
be proud of the Copley portraits of her parents, painted in
their honeymoon days in 1772. I have seen small repro-
ductions of them, in which the painter has brought out the
fine sensibility and earnest character of the sitters. Her
father's letters are marked by tenderness and assured trust;
and her mother's correspondence with the various beloved
absentees reveals a great heart of measureless capacity. Their
fifteen children were worthy, and proved a comfort. Their
married life of forty years was made happy by the deep
mutual esteem upon which affection may safely build. Mar-
garet Gary's rich character-material is intimately interwoven
with the fabric of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem;
and Gary threads, a bit soberer in hue, will occasionally
appear hereafter.

VII

THOMAS WORCESTER AND THE TREASURE-
TROVE OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY

" He gave gifts unto men. • . .

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and
some, pastors and teachers;

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edify-
ing of the body of Christ."

— Ephesians, iv, 8-12.

If the story of Thomas Worcester were written in the
starry heavens he would be found in a constellation of
ecclesiastics: clergy to right of him, clergy to left of him,
clergy in the perspective, near and distant. These Worcester
ministers were largely Congregational, with here a gleam of
Episcopalianism, there a gleam of Unitarianism, and a group
of eight New-Church preachers in the foreground, seven of
whom I knew.

Let us now trace the lineal path of Thomas Worcester's
descent, illumined by a kinsman. Miss Sarah Alice Worcester,
who spent five years in labyrinthine Worcester windings. The
English were generous to aid Sarah Alice's quest. The
British Museum recommended a competent genealogist, Mr.
F. A. Lumbye. She herself went abroad in 1910, and
together they studied parish records, monument inscriptions,
" State Papers Domestic," and Bishops' Certificates. She
concludes from strong testimony that her great-great-great-
great-great-grandfather was William Worcester, who "com-
pounded for the first fruits of the vicarage of Olney in 26
July 22 James I, 1624." She recognizes strong points in
this vicar found also in the leading representatives of the
family in America, and as confirmatory of her own descent
from him.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 65

I. Rev. William Worcester left his Olney Parish Church,
the picture of which lies before me, with its low arched
chancel, its carved reredos, its slender octagonal spire and its
rural surroundings, and came to Salisbury, Massachusetts,
some time between the years 1638 and 1640. He had been
dismissed from his office as vicar for refusing to read from
the King's book those portions which allowed sports and
recreation on the Lord's Day. He found the Puritan Sabbath
congenial, and the Orthodox pulpit at Salisbury a home for
more than twenty years. He was called to the other life in
1662, and his spiritual labors called out commendation:

Cotton Mather in his Magnalia calls him one of the
"reverend, learned and holy divines, arriving such from
Europe to America, by whose evangelical ministry the
churches in America have been illuminated." Johnson, in
iiis JVonder Working Providence, describes him as " reverend
and graciously godly." And the General Court of Massachu-
setts, considering an Order for his support, quaintly says:

"They of New Town (now Amesbury) should forbear to
content themselves with private help, whilst the Lord pleases
to continue so bright a star in their candlestick."

We have a final entertaining glimpse of him in his last
will and testament: after ten shillings to his servant Hannah,
and " some good English authors out of my library " to his
friends, he distributes his property to his beloved wife and
nine descendants. To his sons, Samuel and William, certain
" higletee pigletee " lots of salt marsh; to others his cattle,
named "barbar, golding, cherry, mad-fit, and ghost"; and,

"I doe give unto my daughter Rebecka: Bylie: my brass
chafendish: and also I give unto her a book of mr. Anthony
Burgases concerning the tryalls of grace, as a small token of
my specyall loue unto hir" {Genealogy, pp. 237-240).

H. Samuel Worcester, English born, came over with his
father, married a Rowley maiden in 1659, and became owner
of hundreds of acres of upland and meadow land. The wind-
ing and industrious Merrimack river turned the wheels for
his saw-mills just as it impells the machinery for Lowell and
Lawrence today. In those good old days of the town meeting
the rural citizens looked after the government, and gladly

66 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

sent Samuel to the General Court (State legislature) as their
representative.

Leaving his home in Bradford on foot to attend an ad-
journed meeting of that body in Boston, and failing to find
accommodation at an inn on the way, he was found lifeless on
the road in the attitude of kneeling on the morning of Febru-
ary 21, 1681. He was public-spirited, and a man of dis-
tinguished piety, bequeathing land " to be improved in general
for the use of the ministry, or bestowed upon some able, faith-
ful minister for his encouragement to settle amongst them."

III. Francis Worcester was third among the eleven chil-
dren of Samuel. "He was an innholder and yeoman in
Bradford, Mass., and is represented by his son Francis as a
man of amiable and retiring disposition, and of ardent piety."

IV. Francis Worcester, Jr. (1698-1783), fourth among
the ten children of Francis, was ordained at thirty-seven
over a Congregational Church. He served during his last
twenty-four years as evangelical preacher in destitute parts
of New England.

He had great success in arresting the attention of the young.
They were naturally attracted and affected by his personal
appearance. In height and breadth of frame he presented
the proportions of a commanding and majestic figure, which,
with the intellectual and benignant cast of his eye and counte-
nance, added much to his power of address. *

Francis is an important factor as the founder in 1750 of
the Worcester family home in HoUis, New Hampshire,
sheltering five successive generations, and open, later, to the
reader of this narrative.

V. Noah, (1735-1817) youngest of Francis's group of
five, succeeded in possession of the Hollis homestead. He
served the country as Captain under Washington; he served
the state by helping to frame the New Hampshire Constitution ;
he served religion by sixty years' activity in the Congrega-
tional Church. His silhouette shows a strong nose and de-
cisive chin,

* The Descendants of Rev. William Worcester. First edition published by J.
Fox Worcester. Revised by Sarah Alice Worcester, 270 pp., Boston, Hudson
Printing Co., 1914.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 67

VI. Noah Worcester, Jr., (1758-1837) was the eldest
of the quartet of children born to Noah. " Always of a
thoughtful and serious turn of mind, at the age of twelve he
led in family worship under the Hollis roof when his father
was absent from home." Enlisting at sixteen, he was drum
major at the battle of Bunker Hill, and fife major at the
battle of Bennington. Nine years a school-teacher, and filling
later various town and state activities, he settled over the
church at Thornton, New Hampshire, as Congregational minis-
ter at twenty-eight, with a salary of $200.00 yearly. In
1791 he received an A.M. from Dartmouth, and in 1818 a
D.D. from Harvard. He married (i) in 1779, Hannah
Brown of Newburyport, and (ii) in 1798, Hannah Hunting-
ton of Norwich, Connecticut. His published work. Thoughts
on the Origin of Evil, suggests his seriousness; his Solemn
Review of the Custom of War and his Friend of Peace suggest
a possible rebuke to the god Mars ; his family record suggests
a love of the ministry: himself of the clerical profession, he
had among his immediate descendants eight New-Church
clergymen. His book, Bible News of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost suggests a questioning of the Calvinistic doctrine
of the Trinity; indeed, he had broken away from the reigning
Puritan faith and entered the Unitarian ministry, "exerting
an influence upon religious thought in New England by his
liberal views." He took very high ground in regard to the
Lord Jesus Christ. "Although with the light he then had he
could not understand how He was One with the Father, he
believed him to be, really and truly, the Only Begotten Son of
God."

The portrait of Noah Worcester hangs in the house in
Cambridge of his great-grandson, Rev. William L. Worcester.
It radiates a kind of sunshine, and I can quite picture him as
he is described, placing his hand over his heart which had
been beating for seventy years or more, and invoking the
divine blessing at his table with the opening words, " Indul-
gent Parent." The Orthodox divine. Dr. Blagden of Brighton,
differing in theology, but socially cordial, further depicts
him as a patriarch, tall and of large frame with his long
hair surmounted by a broad brimmed hat, wearing a surtout

68 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

or gown, and bearing a staff (pp. 11, 12 of Sampson Reed's
Biography of Thomas Worcester).

VII. Thomas Worcester ( 1795-1878) , the subject of this
narrative, was the ninth child of Noah and Hannah Brown
Worcester. He first saw the light of day in Thornton, New
Hampshire, where, until he was eighteen, he could look out
on the noble Lower Kearsarge mountain. In 1814 he entered
Harvard. Josiah Quincy, fourth of that name, came three
years later, and gives pen-pictures of contemporary methods
and characteristics.*

Of transportation, light, fuel and amusements, he writes:

" We knew but a morning and evening stage between Cam-
bridge and Boston. At nine and two o'clock, Morse, the
stage driver, drew up in the college yard, and performed
upon a tin horn to notify us of his arrival. . . .

" The difficulty of getting a light with numb fingers, on a
cold night, was a petty misery. In vain were the flint and
steel clashed together; too often it happened that no available
spark was the result. The tinder would absorb dampness in
spite of all precautions to keep it dry. Our light came from
dipped candles, with very broad bases and gradually narrow-
ing at the top. These required the constant use of snuffers.
Indeed, the dual brain with which mankind are furnished
seemed to us to show intelligent design. One brain was
clearly required to do the studying, while it was the business
of the other to watch the candles and look after the snuffers.
. . . Our fuel was wood, which was furnished by the col-
lege; it being cut from some lands in Maine. . . . My
classmate, Otis, had ornamented his mantelpiece with two
curious black stones, which excited great interest in his
visitors. He had made a journey to Washington, and had
brought these rarities home. He had a strange tale to tell
concerning them. It seemed that the people in Bakimore
actually burned just such stones as these. . . . They will be
now recognized under the name of anthracite coal."

One amusement indulged in by the students was the privi-
lege of turkey shooting at long range for a fee — the bird to
belong to the Harvard student who hit it; and Quincy adds:

* Figures of the Past by Josiah Quincy.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 69

"The usual end of a Harvard turkey-shooting was the
departure of the proprietor of the turkeys with all his birds,
and all our sixpences. ... In the days when there were no
public libraries, no travelling operas, no theatre trains, —
when, in fact, the one distraction of the week was going to
meeting, — who can wonder that the flowery paths leading
to the domestic circle were more frequented than at present? "
Mr. Quincy describes the University officers: President
John T. Kirkland, a Congregational clergyman, was able to
rule lightly but effectually, had extraordinary intellectual
force, manners of unassuming simplicity, and much kindli-
ness of heart; Dr. Popkin, professor of Greek, whose "an-
tique simplicity, dry humour, and hatred of all shams were
just the qualities to win the regard of young men"; Pro-
fessor Frisbie in the chair of moral philosophy, who had
"clearness and condensation" of thought and who "could
never bear to hear treated with levity those vices which a lax
public opinion has considered venial"; Professor John Far-
rar, whom the students like, though " in general they hate his
branch (mathematics)."

As to religion, John Adams had hoped that his son might
become a clergyman; "but the nature of the doctrines which
were then taught repelled him."

As Thomas Worcester studied theology in the Harvard
Divinity School, the history of that school is a matter of
present interest. Regarding the college, Josiah Quincy, being
in 1840 its president, writes:

"We expect to find it, with certainty, anchored head and
stem, secure against wind, tide and current, moored firmly
on all the points which, in that day, were deemed fixed and
immutable. . . . Yet, surprising as is the fact, there is not,
in any one of the charters that form the Constitution of this
College, one expression, on which a merely sectarian spirit
can seize to wrest it into a shackle for the human soul.
The idea never seems to have entered the minds of its early
founders, of laying conscience under bonds for good be-
haviour" (vol. i. pp. 45, 46).*

* History of Harvard University, by Josiah Quincy. 2 vols. 1340 pp. Cam-
bridge, published by John Owen, 1840.

70 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

The financial foundation of the Theological School was
laid by Thomas Hollis, a London merchant, in 1720, whose
gift ensured forty pounds a year for a professor, and scholar-
ships of ten pounds each yearly "to assist one pious young
man in the judgment of charity religiously inclined, in his
studies for the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . .
and that none be refused on account of his belief and practice
of adult baptism (italics his) if he be sober and religiously
inclined . . . the whole design thereof being for the glory of
God and the good of precious souls" (vol. i. pp. 530, 531).

In an attempt — long, patient, and finally successful — to
fill the vacant chair of the Hollis professorship nearly a
century later, in 1805, the question of the " soundness and
orthodoxy" of the candidate, Rev. Henry Ware, Sr., was
brought up. The defense declared:

" That this attempt to introduce a categorical examination
into the creed of a candidate was a barbarous relic of In-
quisitorial power, alien alike from the genius of our govern-
ment and the spirit of the people ; — that the College had been
dedicated to Christ and not to Calvin ; — to Christianity and
not to sectarianism . . ." (Quincy, vol. ii, pp. 284, 285).

In 1813, just before the entrance of Thomas Worcester
as student at Harvard, William Ellery Channing had com-
pleted his brief period as instructor in the Chair of Biblical
Criticism. He is thus described in the American Cyclopaedia^
edition of 1863 :

" Irreconcilably opposed to the Calvinistic scheme and the
doctrine of the Trinity, he was even more at variance with
the Unitarianism of Priestley; and occupying a middle
ground in theology, he was unrivalled in his enthusiasm for
moral and progressive ideas."

As may be seen, it was a transitional period when Mr.
Worcester came to study on the Charles. He knew, through
his brother Samuel, of the " Treasure-Trove of Harvard " —
the gift from Rev. Wm. Hill of a set of Swedenborg's Arcana;
and on his return to the institution after the vacation of 1816,
he began a diligent search for the volumes. The library
seemed a reasonable place, and he visited the West End
of Harvard Hall. Learning through the catalogue the alcove

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 71

and shelf where they should be, he found only their absence,
significant of indifference. Other efforts failed. As a last
resort he visited a small, insignificant room flatteringly called
the " Museum," filled with rubbish, discarded curiosities, and
obsolete philosophical apparatus. He was searching for the
Writings which treat the letter of the Holy Word as a casket
which encloses precious spiritual treasures compared to
pearls and diadems. He finally found the Arcana volumes
in a remote, dark corner on the lowest shelf, sleeping the
sleep of oblivion and covered with the dust of neglect. The
discoverer further tells us:

" Of the fifty or sixty thousand volumes then belonging to
the library, these were the only ones treated in this manner.
The fact seems to represent the state of the New Church at
that time" {Biography of Thomas Worcester by Sampson
Reed, pp. 17, 18).

Mr. Worcester found kindred spirits under the college
roof — men open to conviction and, later, his coworkers in
the New Church. Among his classmates were John H. Wil-
kins, Warren Goddard, William Parsons and Sampson Reed.
In classes ranging between 1815 and 1823 were Theophilus
Parsons, Caleb Reed, T. B. Hayward, John Angier, Nathanail
Hobart, and T. G. Worcester. In the King's Chapel Addresses
of 1917, Mr. Worcester's grandson William writes on pp.
328, 329:

" It is perhaps impossible for us in this day of freedom
and tolerance to realize fully the difficulties within and with-
out which beset these pioneers of the New Church a hundred
years ago. In part their hardships were the same that were
experienced by the early Universalists and Unitarians, who
rebelled against the standing order, and were at that time
waging war with the Calvinism so strongly intrenched in New
England. Equally with these liberals, the New Church was
at war with the old-fashioned Calvinism and its doctrines of
predestination, vicarious atonement, and salvation by faith
alone. But, on the other hand, it varied almost as much
with the liberal bodies. Its position was lonely in the ex-
treme, — a mere handful of people, commonly regarded with
suspicion, misunderstood, treated with contempt and ridi-

72 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

cule, in not a few cases cut off from association with rela-
tives and former friends. Thomas Worcester once told me
that in the early days of his ministry in Boston there was
hardly a respectable minister in the city who dared to be
civil to him. And when a school was opened for the children
of the church, it was in part to protect the children from the
treatment which they received in other schools.

"Members of the church were ostracised from good
society, and their children ridiculed on the street. They
early learned to suffer for their religion, and gained at once
a spiritual strength, and a reluctance to spread broadcast the
things which were to them most sacred. These traits John
Worcester, son of Thomas, shared with nearly all the early
New Churchmen of New England." *

In 1818 Thomas Worcester was graduated from Harvard.
The institution could then boast of at least five buildings:
Harvard Hall, which held the Arcana "treasure-trove"; Hol-
lis, Stoughton, Holworthy, and the newest, University Hall,
dignified and simple, as might be expected from its architect,
Charles Bulfinch.

Even before Thomas Worcester's graduation, little gather-
ings had begun of those interested in our faith. Ten devotees,
called together by Samuel Worcester, met at the home of
Mrs. Margaret Hiller Prescott. Mr. Joseph Roby was the
Nestor of the assembly at seventy-eight, standing on the
verge of another life. Miss Cary tells us that,

"When the question arose who should address the Throne
of Mercy, Mr. Roby observed that every one ought to know
how to pray, and proposed that it be taken in turn. Of
course, he, being so much older, was requested to make the
prayer; which the good old gentleman did" (New Jerusalem
Magazine, vol. xxx, page 394).

Rev. T. B. Hayward describes the scene at the institution
of the Boston Society, August 15, 1818 (Semi-Centennial
Celebration pamphlet) :

" The ceremony was very simple. We stood in a circle

* From Memorial of John Worcester by his son, William Worcester, as preface
to the former's work. The Promise of Peace, 196 pp., Boston, Massachusetts
New-Church Union, 1900.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 73

around the room; Mr. Carll read some suitable forms, in-
cluding some passages from the Word; we kneeled, and united
in repeating the Lord's Prayer; the proper questions were
asked and answered. Mr. Carll then declared us to be a duly
instituted church; and we all signed our names to a Creed
which had been previously agreed upon.

"This is but a feeble representation of the importance
and greatness of the occasion to us. This consisted in the
intensity of feeling and the spiritual state in which we did
this. We felt that we were taking a step that was all-impor-
tant to the world around us, all-important in every point of
view. We felt that we were inaugurating the Lord's New
Church upon the earth.''

The names of the twelve signers are the following:

Joseph Roby Abigail Cowell

Fames Mann Margaret H. Prescott

Nathaniel Balch Eliza Cowell

David A. Dayies Thomazine E. Minot

Samuel Worcester Thomas Worcester

Margaret G. Cary T. B. Hayward

Thomas Worcester historically was the central figure among
the twelve charter members of the Boston Society — not only
for that society, but for the New Church in New England. At
the close of his full academic course in Cambridge he entered
the Harvard Unitarian Divinity School and pursued a three
years' course there. Mr. Hayward, also in the theological
school for three years, says:

"Our position was well miderstood by the professors;
and we expressed our views with the utmost freedom. We
were active in bringing the doctrine to the attention of all
who were ready to listen to them, and in corresponding with
our friends at a distance on the subject. We were treated
with great kindness by the government of the college, receiv-
ing as much as others from funds which could be applied to
the payment of our expenses" (Reed, pp. 38, 39). Harvard
atoned for permitting the Arcana to be buried in dust and
oblivion; long after Thomas Worcester became a New-Church
clergyman, his Alma Mater made him a Doctor of Divinity in

74 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1856 — the first time that that degree had been bestowed on
a New Churchman by any college. In 1854 he had been
appointed by the Massachusetts legislature an overseer of
Harvard, a position which he held for six years. Public
opprobrium of New-Church persons was wearing off.

The world at large in 1821 was less tolerant than Harvard.
Mr. Worcester is quoted in Reed's biography of him, pp. 43,
125, as writing in 1871:

" The New Church is in all respects regarded very differ-
ently from what it was fifty years ago. This some of us
know by experience, for some of us were then quite depend-
ent, and in want of employment. We had been struggling
to get our education, and had exhausted, and more than
exhausted, our means. We had expected to become ministers,
but now all prospect of this was cut off.

" Those who made any efforts to impart the truths they had
received were in general soon led to relinquish the attempt
by the incredulity or disdain with which they were repelled.
They were acknowledged by the condescending liberality of
their contemporaries, to be good people, though weak to a
degree little short of fatuity." And the vivacious Mrs. Sam-
uel Worcester, referring to those days, still further enlightens
us:

"Of course a great cry was raised against us, — we were
deceived, — we were visionary, — were fanatics; and when in
1817 I was married to Samuel Worcester, I believe our
friends and relatives generally would have felt quite willing
to have had us locked up in some insane asylum " [Semi-
centennial, p. 18).

A line of wooers on their way to a certain attractive home
in Waltham, Massachusetts, will furnish a cheerful diversion
for the readers of this book after breathing the atmosphere
dismal with misunderstanding, or hostile with detraction, or
bitter with contumely, or depressing with ridicule, or dull
with indifference, with which the early New-Church people
were treated by the public.

The genial Waltham hearthstone which welcomed in those
days Harvard students of Swedenborgian bias belonged to
John Clark (1767-1850), captain of the state militia. On

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 75

May 14, 1793, he had married Lydia Sanderson, a Wahham
lassie aged twenty-four. Both could remember the battle of
Lexington, which linked them with the Revolution, and both
ultimately linked their fortunes with the New Church. Seven
children were born to them during their fifty-seven years of
married life. It may be said here that Captain and Mrs.
John Clark when more than sexagenarians joined the Boston
Society on July 5, 1835, and that five of their children had
preceded them in membership.

Thomas Worcester was one of the Harvard students of
Swedenborgian bias whose heart drew him to Waltham be-
cause of the fair Alice Clark. Captain Clark then lived on
the site nearly opposite the present Waltham School for Girls.
The region is known as " Piety Corner," and it is a mile from
the present city of Waltham. The Clark house, of which
only a picture remains, was sufficiently spacious to hold
the seven children and all the lovers. It was in a pretty
valley sheltered by wooded hills. Thomas Worcester, at
twenty-six years of age, married the fair Alice Clark, and his
testimony regarding her is the most direct that I can find. He
said in later years (Reed, pp. 45, 46) :

" Her mind was full of religious sentiment, and of a desire
to live a good life, and she needed only the truth to direct her.
So, when I became convinced that she would receive the
doctrines of the New Church, I proposed that we should
unite in our efforts to live according to them. The proposal
was favorably received, but not accepted till after long, care-
ful consideration, and consultation with her parents. The
engagement lasted four years, before the time came for
marriage. During this time I received a great deal of spirit-
ual support from her, doubtless more than I know, and cer-
tainly more than I can describe. She was much interested in
the doctrines, and in all that I was doing in the church; and
in all things she was a most valuable aid. As to my reception
of the doctrines, she was a constant aid. It was only a few
months after I began to receive them that she began. Our
modes of receiving were, of course, different. The faith
of a man is different from that of a woman, and neither is
complete without the other. I know that when I had been

76 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

studying anything of the church, I was always benefited by
conversing with her upon it, and perceiving how she felt and
thought about it. So, when we were married, and I entered
upon my duties as a minister of the Boston society, she was of
great use. My natural tendencies were such as to lead me to
be very intimate with a very few, and to make it difficult for
me to be open and communicative with many. But my wife
was naturally very sociable, and when she came into the
church she was full of both natural and spiritual kindness
towards all. By her influence, and by the information she
was continually giving me, I was drawn out somewhat, and
made to do better than I should otherwise have done.

"She was a very good wife and mother; and being very
open-hearted and kind, she came into intimate relations with
all, or nearly all, the wives and mothers in our society. Al-
most daily did they come to her for advice and encourage-
ment. This would lead us to study the subjects (they pre-
sented) together. The studies were very useful to us, and I
think they were the means of enabling her to be very useful
to others."

In 1821 Alice Clark Worcester is described as a beauti-
ful bride. In 1845 my father and mother came on from
Michigan for the Boston Church dedication; and their host-
ess, Mrs. John H. Wilkins, said, " Mrs. Silver, have you seen
our minister's wife? She is the cream of our society." My
mother was enraptured upon meeting her. Mr. Worcester
was licensed to officiate in 1821, and receive ordination in
1828.

Mr. Worcester was a man of strong and commanding per-
sonality. I hold no brief for him, but I truly think that he
could not help being influential however hard he might try
to the contrary. He was a born leader, and a multitude of
persons whom I have known insisted that he should be such.
WTien, from his towering height and with his massive frame,
he bent over to take the hand of us small folk, we felt the
power of a strong will, like granite. The touch of the hand
was soft, the manner patriarchal, the voice low, the words
few, the spirit kindly; but you felt yourself in the presence
of a master of men, before whom irresolute wills would bend.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 77

and to whom teachable persons would listen. He was an
enormous influence in New England and beyond it. I often
recall the comment by Mrs. Horace P. Noyes, who often heard
his sermons; she was a discriminating observer, and she said
that if she began to listen, she continued to the end; for the
discourse was so connected that there was never a loophole
where she could slip out.

The early meetings of the New Church for worship were
held in private houses; then the little company changed from
Hall to Hall, with no fixed abiding place. The gathering for
the institution of the Society itself was under the roof of an
earnest disciple, Dr. James Mann; and King's Chapel (Uni-
tarian) showed Christian fellowship by the loan, on that
occasion, of their Holy Communion Service for our use.
The migratory Society, subject to the vicissitudes of all new
movements, found in 1845 a seventh place of worship which
proved beautiful and permanent. Mr. and Mrs. Worcester
lived for fourteen years in friendly proximity to the Phillips
Place Hall, and opened their own home for varied hospitality.
They also, finally, established a permanent residence of Mr.
Worcester's own erecting, in Louisburg Square in 1845. If
you will stand facing the east side of the square you will see
a brick block in which one house is distinguished by a bay
window in the fourth story, marking Mr. Worcester's study.

The Rev. John Worcester tells us that, even in 1828, music
was in a transition state, and current hymnology was unsatis-
factory. The Rev. T. B. Hayward, then a young layman, and
apparently the best equipped musically among the worshipers,
had attempted the introduction of old English anthems for
morning service, and choruses from Handel's " Messiah "
for evening. Then came " The Book of Publick Worship,
prepared for the Use of the Boston Society of the New Jerusa-
lem, in 1829. Boston, Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkins, and
Adonis Howard."

The above is a small book of one hundred and seventy
pages, w^ith a dissertation on chanting filling thirteen pages.
It contains twenty-nine chants and twenty-six choruses, of
which nine are from Handel's Oratorio of the Messiah, in-
cluding the difficult and impressive "Hallelujah Chorus,"

78 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

"Behold the Lamb of God," the "Glory to God in the
Highest," and "Worthy is the Lamb that was Slain!" Their
selection shows religious aspiration and musical ambition.

Professor George James Webb of Wiltshire, England, was
educated in voice, piano, violin, organ, harmony, and musical
theory. Two events of value occurred shortly after his arrival
in Boston in 1830. He met at a musical club T. B. Hayward;
and he soon discovered his possession of a strange and attrac-
tive book, The True Christian Religion, asked for the loan of
it, and became deeply interested. In the meantime he had
secured a position as organist at the Old South Meeting House,
a building dating back to 1730, and a strong entrenchment for
Orthodoxy.

On a site called Phillips Place, now occupied by Houghton
and Button's store. Beacon Street, near Tremont, the Boston
Society worshiped, from 1831 to 1845, in a building gener-
ously erected at the expense of Timothy Harrington Carter.
The worshipers, entering a broad door, and ascending a flight
of stairs, found themselves in a " domed Hall," as Rev. John
Worcester has described it; and, with windows on a level, and
ten windows in the dome, the room must have been attractive.
To this cheerfully lighted Hall, Professor Webb went each
Sunday morning from his organ at the Old South Meeting
House after the opening service, to hear Rev. Thomas Worces-
ter, returning before the closing musical services. But the
Old South Church authorities objected. Professor Webb
writes:

" I told them I was hired to play the organ, and as there
was no music required after the sermon commenced, I then
felt at perfect liberty to go and hear the doctrines preached
in which I believed."

The objectors continued, he acquiesced, but at the close of
the year he resigned. After a few weeks they invited him
to take the organ on his own terms, which he did temporarily;
but the New Church soon engaged him permanently, and " his
love for appropriate singing qualified him at once to give
voice to the desires of the Society which received a new and
delightful means of expression." *

* See New Jerusalem Magazine, March, 1888, pp. 143-145.

The Domed Hall in Phillips Place, where the

Boston Society of the New Jerusalem

worshiped for many years

Professor Theophilus Pars
of the Boston Society

Interior of the Boston Church of tho \<'n Jiriisalem

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 79

The completion of the Boston Society House of Worship
on Bowdoin Street was a very marked event, historicaUy,
religiously, and musically. A spacious interior lot was for
sale, and in connection with its purchase they obtained a
contiguous strip of land, about fifteen by forty feet, extend-
ing to Bowdoin Street, on which the vestibule could be built.
For public uses, the state has torn away the houses opposite
this land, so that the entrance to the Church now faces the
extension of the State House, thereby much enhancing its
value. On this lot a worthy building for worship was erected,
having a beautiful interior, the timbered roof giving a sense
of spaciousness and exaltation, and the spire-like wood-carved
repository for the Word in the centre of the chancel empha-
sizing a fitting sense of reverence for the Lord's Holy Scrip-
tures. On this repository, the large golden western window
opposite threw a flood of rich light in the afternoon, sug-
gesting to the beholder the radiance of heaven.

The church dedication took place in connection with the
twenty-seventh meeting of the General Convention of the
New Jerusalem held in June, 1845. Clergymen and dele-
gates over a wide area from Maine to Michigan were present,
assembling on Wednesday the eleventh at Phillips Place,
there being from two hundred and fifty to three hundred
members and receivers other than those of Boston. At 2.30
P.M. all adjourned to the Church building, the Rev. Benjamin
F. Barrett preaching the sermon from Matthew viii, 18-20,
including the statement that " the Son of man hath not where
to lay His head." On Thursday, the Rev. George Field gave
the discourse from Malachi, iii: 6, " I am the Lord, I change
not." On Friday, the pulpit message was by Rev. Thomas
P. Rodman from John, xiv: 1-3, of the many mansions in
the Father's house.

The business sessions are worth studying, since they show
the wide range of religious activities already gaining atten-
tion more than seven decades ago.

At the Sunday services for the dedication thirteen hundred
persons were present, the Rev. Thomas Worcester, pastor
of the Boston Society, and president of the General Con-
vention, delivering the sermon from a verse in King Solo-

80 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

mon's prayer at the Temple dedication (I Kings, viii, 27) :
"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the
heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this
house that I have builded? "

After the sermon, Mr. Worcester very fittingly led in the
Dedicatory Service, which consecrated the building to the
worship of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one only God of
heaven and earth. The music was of extraordinary power
in its spiritual impressiveness according to the verbal testi-
mony given by my parents who were present. The organ
was at the left of the chancel, sustaining Professor Webb's
carefully trained semi-choruses of fifty mixed voices, each
placed at the two ends of the gallery near the instrument.
The antiphonal effect by the answering bodies was fine, and
the united choruses, emphasizing such portions of the psalms
as expressed the Divine majesty and power, were full of
grandeur {New Jerusalem Magazine, July, 1845). At this
point it is interesting to turn to the Book of Publick Worship,
six by four inches, prepared in 1829 for the Boston Society.
I am pleasantly indebted to Rev. John Wright, an Episcopal
clergyman of St. Paul, Minnesota, for his compendium of
American liturgies at large, including our own. He was
assisted by his warm friend, Rev. Frank Sewall.

At the twenty-five gatherings of the Convention which I
have attended, I have remembered most fervently those in
which it was practicable to close the series of meetings on
Sunday, after the administration of the Holy Supper, by
Psalm 121. Words cannot describe the spiritual power of
that psalm on those occasions. I contrast it with the best
music I have heard elsewhere; with that of the Jewish syna-
gogues here and abroad, rich in their Hebrew Scripture
music, and their fine compositions, including chant-anthems;
with the Russian choir of the Greek Chapel in Paris, where
the quality of voice, the accurate intonation, the exquisite
rendering were beyond words; with the mixed voices in the
Royal Chapel at Munich under the Bavarian King Ludwig
n which reached the highest point in religious expression
which I have ever heard in the Roman Catholic Church. I
would further add the Coptic Church music at Cairo, en-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 81

hanced by the ministrations of Ava Kirollos, Patriarch of
Alexandria and of the visiting Bishop of Abyssinia; also
the music at St. Peter's in Rome at Candlemas and Easter,
when Pope Pius the Ninth still retained his civil power, and
the stately church ceremonials, with a vast vested choir and
many instruments including silver trumpets, carried the
hearer back to a powerful historic past. And yet, all these
retire to the background before the impressive devotionalism,
the serenity of soul, the interior quickening of the spirit,
experienced on hearing at our Convention Communion Ser-
vice, the singing, by all, of the Psalm beginning, " I will lift
up mine eyes to the mountains." In 1866, at Boston, there
were more than six hundred communicants; and I think
that the power lay in the fact that the singers were worship-
ing the Lord Jesus Christ in His Glorified Humanity.

Returning to Mr. Webb, I would call attention to his beauti-
ful spirit in cooperative work. Other and new musicians
came in, and when he was asked to help revise the 1876
Liturgy to which he had contributed much music, " he labored
on it with cordial good-will and displayed in his work such
patience, reverence, and modesty, as greatly deepened the
affectionate respect of those who had the pleasure of work-
ing with him." In studying voice and piano with him my-
self, and singing in his choir, comprising then about sixty
members, I recall his weekly evening meetings at the church
to drill the congregation in chanting, beginning with " Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly."
He was very earnest for music from every pew.

Mrs. Augusta Fernald Faxon of the Boston Society has
given a paper on "The Old Choir" which she brings down
to 1865, when a new organ in the west gallery opposite the
chancel, and a new choir, ended the old regime. Knowing
Mr. Webb many years, she testifies to his noble character,
exceptional ability, and devotion to the Church. His choir
work " gave great satisfaction to regular attendants, and
attracted many visitors." His eldest daughter, Mary Webb,
led the south choir, Mrs. Keene the north choir.

" Thomas Worcester had a strong cabinet," was a frequent
remark; and Sampson Reed was certainly his prime minister,

82 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

whose personal loyalty during a lifetime was unabated and
unwavering. He was a son of Rev. John Reed, D.D., who
had adopted the current doctrines, which he was led to scru-
tinize when his eldest son asked questions about the catechism
which he could not satisfactorily answer. This led him to
change his views, and dismiss the catechism, in place of which
he heard his children read daily especially in the Gospels;
he himself going directly to the Sacred Scriptures as to no
other book.

Sampson Reed's Bible-loving father strengthened the lad's
religious nature. While sharing Thomas Worcester's Har-
vard academic and theological training, Sampson became in-
terested in Swedenborg. Remaining a layman, he lived to
see his influential son, James Reed, represent the clergy, and
hand down the New Church to five lines of grandchildren.
Sampson Reed won the admiration of the Concord tran-
scendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, at twenty-three
years of age, first became interested in Swedenborg and
his writings through a New-Church book of standard excel-
lence. He says under date of September 10, 1826, in his
Journal :

"Our American press does not often issue such produc-
tions as Sampson Reed's Observations on the Growth of the
Mind, a book of such a character as I am conscious betrays
some pretension even to praise. It has to my mind the aspect
of a revelation, such is the wealth and such is the novelty
of the truth unfolded in it. It is remarkable for the unity
into which it has resolved the various powers, feelings and
vocations of men, suggesting to the mind that harmony, which
it has always a propensity to seek of action and design m
the order of Providence in the world." *

At twenty-one Emerson had entered the Harvard Divinity
School in search of new truth, and was already asking whether
the ministry of the day had something to say worth the at-
tention of men :

" Has the spell of weary century dissolved, and the Deity
disclosed himself to men? Has the Most High opened
his sublime abodes and come down on his sorrowing
children with healing in his wings? Speak! How came
* Emersou's Journals, Cambridge, 1909, vol. ii, p. 116.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 83

he? What is he? What said he? and what is to come? "
(p. 59).

At twenty-two he is combating the philosophy of Germany,
declaring that it would be vile and supine to sit and be
astonished without exploring the strength of the enemy. He
makes a plea eloquent in its warmth for historic and legendary
Christianity:

". . . for the august Founder, the twelve self-denying
heroes of a pious renown distancing in moral sublimity all
those primeval benefactors whom ancient gratitude deified
... for the antidote which Christianity has administered to
remorse and despair; the Samaritan oil it has poured into
wounded hearts; the costly sacrifices and unpurchasable de-
votion to the cause of God and man it has now for eighteen
centuries inspired" (pp. 83-85).

In spite of this plea, Emerson had already revealed some
" daring heterodoxy " which had stirred the heart and evoked
the reproof of his aunt. Miss Ellen Emerson, who had nur-
tured him from childhood. In a spirited letter to him, she
speaks of Jesus Christ as " a descended being, the Companion
of God before time," and she pleads for an alliance with the
most powerful of spirits — the Holy Ghost:

"Holy Ghost given to every man in Eden; it was lost
in the great contest going on in the vast universe; it was
lost, stifled; it was regiven, embodied in the assumed hu-
manity of the Son of God. . . ."
Emerson wrote his aunt as follows:

" But what, in the name of all the fairies, is the reason you
don't like Sampson Reed? What swart star has looked
sparely on him? Can anything be more gently, more wisely
writ? Has any modern hand touched the harp of great
nature so rarely? Has any one looked so shrewdly into
the subtle and concealed connexion of man and nature, of
earth and heaven? Has any, in short, produced such curi-
osity to see the farther progress, the remoter results, of the
cast of intellect to which he belongs? " (p. 124).

In 1833 Emerson visited and charmed Thomas Carlyle,
whence ensued a lengthened epistolary correspondence, sub-
sequently edited by Professor Charles Eliot Norton. Emer-
son writes in 1834:

84 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

" I am glad that you like Sampson Reed, and that he has
inspired your curiosity regarding his church."

"He is a faithful thinker, that Swedenborgian druggist
of yours," responds Carlyle, "with really deep ideas, who
makes me pause and think, were it only to consider what
manner of man he must be, and what manner of thing after
all, Swedenborgians must be."

Mr. Reed analyzes transcendentalism with discrimination
in his preface to the fifth edition in 1865 of his Growth of
the Mind. Emerson, in his Representative Men, extols Swed-
enborg in brilliant epigram, but comprehends him irregularly
and fitfully. He is stimulating, idealistic, resourceful. Mr.
Reed's book is quietly suggestive, and reaches the deep levels
of thought.

Sampson Reed was the second Harvard student of Sweden-
borgian bias to go wooing in Waltham. Among Captain
Clark's daughters, he chose Catharine, who was more self-
contained and reserved than her sister, Alice. The Reed's
stately brick house in Louisburg Square was erected adjoin-
ing that of Thomas Worcester on the north; and little James
Reed and little John Worcester grew up as cousins side by
side. The Silver family can testify to Sampson Reed's
friendly welcome, and to his wife's tranquilly administered
hospitality, on many a day.

Caleb Reed graduated at Harvard in 1817, having George
Bancroft and Caleb Cushing among his distinguished class-
mates. About 1819 he became interested in the New Church;
and Sampson Reed says of it:

"He commenced reading for the purpose of convincing
me, who was his brother, and by three years his junior, of
my errors; and that being a good object was duly rewarded.
He found a treasure which he little expected; and when he
found it, he did not lay it up in a napkin, but used it to the
best of his ability."

Mr. Caleb Reed's early study and practice of law cover-
ing nine years aided him in an intelligent analysis of spiri-
tual truth; and his easy financial circumstances enabled him
to give valuable gratuitous service for more than twenty
years as editor of the New Jerusalem Magazine. Conciliatory

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 85

in his manner, which brought conflicting elements into har-
mony, he was inflexible in adherence to principle {New-
Church Messenger, vol. ii, pp. 286, 287, December, 1854).

In 1835 he married Mary, eldest daughter of Mrs. Thoma-
zine Minot, the latter one of the charter members of the
Boston Society. The young wife, after six years, was called
to the other life, leaving an infant child, Arthur, and a daugh-
ter, Helen, aged two. In this extremity, the Rev. and Mrs.
Thomas Worcester extended a great-hearted welcome to the
family. The Reeds remained several years under the
Worcester roof, and Benjamin Worcester became Helen's
first drawing teacher. The little girl was under the immediate
care of Miss Ruth Cobb, who in 1847 married her father.

Encouraged by Preston, son of Hiram Powers, under whom
she was instructed in Boston in clay modeling, Helen Reed
went to Italy for study of art, remaining twenty-five years.
She rejoiced in the Signor Scocia movement.

In 1892, Mrs. Henry Nichols and myself saw Helen's home
in Florence. From our rooms on the Arno we followed
a street leading past the Pitti Palace through the Porto
Romano Gate. Just within a paved archway was the door
leading to her little suite of ground floor studio rooms abound-
ing with artistic objects. Two flights above was her home
suite: at the front, her dining room, at the back, her parlor,
seemingly ten miles from city noises. It looked out on shrub-
bery and trees where the nightingales should have sung for us,
but did not. For sixteen years Helen shared this home with
Miss Robinson, an English lady, with a low-toned, beauti-
fully modulated voice, who was gracious to Helen's New-
Church friends, familiar with the Italian language, closely
observant of the native people, and possessed of a keen sense
of fun.

The tie between Helen Reed and her brother Arthur was
exceptionally near; he visited her every year abroad. He
was in the Harvard class of '62, and a member of the Phi
Beta Kappa; an officer in the Civil War, one of the founders
of the Apollo Club, and clerk of the Boston Society under
his cousin. Rev. James Reed. Helen's spiritual anchorage,
and her submission, when Arthur was called up higher in

86 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1915, astonished her friends. She followed in 1917. We
love to look at her " Angel of the Resurrection " in low relief
in one of the rooms of the Boston church. The face and
upward gesture express aspiration; the flowing hair and
drapery are full of motion. Helen herself is now hearing
the ineff'able music of adoration by the angels, and is seeing
the transcendent colors of heaven.

Tilly B. Hayward (1797-1878) chose Harvard as his
Alma Mater, entering a bit later than the Worcester group.
He never married, but warmed his bachelor heart at Caleb
Reed's hearthstone as a member of his household for several
years. He occupied the fourth-story room recently known
as Helen Reed's "den" or studio, with its portfolios of her
exquisitely tinted pastels of Venetian scenes. There was
genial coloring in Mr. Hayward's character also. Thomas
Worcester, as a co-student at college, drew his attention one
day in 1817 to the New Church. He commented on a lately
deceased friend, expressed interest in his present condition,
and wondered what he was doing in the other world. Young
Hayward inquired concerning these singular thoughts, re-
called the current unsatisfactory views regarding life here-
after, borrowed and read Heaven and Hell, and asked him-
self, " Is there really no test by which I shall certainly know
whether it is true or false? " And Sampson Reed tells us
that Mr. Hayward seemed to hear a voice saying:

" There is such a test. If it has the tendency to make you
a better man; to make you love the Scriptures; to bring you
nearer to the Lord, it is true, not otherwise."

Mr. Hayward was the youngest of the twelve charter mem-
bers of the Boston Society, kept his heart green through his
teaching of boys and young men, was more interested in
bringing out their faculties than in filling their memories,
became a critical translator of Swedenborg from the Latin,
taught the Greek Testament in our Theological School, and
was ordained a clergyman in 1850.

Francis Phelps, when a Harvard senior in 1836, dropped
into the office of his lawyer cousin, Theophilus Parsons, one
day, found him too occupied to visit, and picked up a copy
of the New Jerusalem Magazine. Here he found an article

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 87

by Sampson Reed Concerning Marriages in Heaven. It con-
tained wonderful things at which he grew more and more
astonished every moment. On finishing its perusal he had
a complete conviction that it was all true, and — to use his
words — he became a thorough-going Swedenborgian with-
out knowing then what it all meant. For the past six or seven
years he had been visiting other churches to discover some-
thing of life hereafter, only to be told that nothing could
be known. On that very visit he borrowed the New Jerusalem
Magazine numbers by the dozen — fifty or sixty of them —
and as he crossed Harvard Bridge with his huge bundle he
felt that he had discovered a great treasure. He devoted to
it every moment spared from college studies, joined the
Church in 1837, and his sixty years' devotion to it only
ended for this world with his death.

Francis Phelps also warmed his bachelor heart under
Caleb Reed's hospitable Pinckney Street rooftree, visiting
it often for the sake of his dear bachelor friend, Tilly Hay-
ward. Mr. Phelps not only read Swedenborg, but he carried
a great quantity of accurate paragraph numbers in his ca-
pacious head. At a temporary club with Mr. Peleg Chandler
as president which met at one time in the Tremont Street
Theological School rooms, I was there. And when some dis-
puted point of doctrine arose, Francis Phelps, who came,
I think, as a watchman upon the walls and a protector of
truth, would go to the library, find the fitting passage in the
Arcana, and read it.

Frank 0. Whitney was another bachelor-for-life New
Churchman. He was as true a friend of Rev. James Reed
as Damon ever was to Pythias, and he protected him from
the perils of the sea when they crossed the Atlantic in 1910
for the great New-Church Centennial in London. He was
also a warm friend of George Ropes, who became a benedict
by marrying Mary Minot Clark, a lady of very superior
character, and a granddaughter of the good Waltham sea
captain Clark. I saw Mr. Whitney last at the home of the
Ropes daughters, Alice and Charlotte, and was surprised
to hear him say that he liked Thackeray better than Dickens.
I fancied that the satirist's caustic pen would offend the

88 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

serene-spirited man, but sometimes we may like to have other
people say what we only think in silence. It is a kind of
vicarious outlet.

Francis Phelps was delighted when his brother Arthur —
ten years his junior — became an ardent New Churchman.
Arthur, at thirty-five, while still a bachelor, made an extended
European trip. His autograph lecture on the subject lies
before me, and furnishes material to the reader for character
study. In 1853, few Americans made leisurely recreative
journeys abroad, although Arthur's pastor, the Rev. Thomas
Worcester, had preceded him. Mr. Phelps sailed the eighth
of December from Boston, a bracing Nor'Wester giving life
to the "graceful inanimate craft." But, in spite of the
barque's spirited name. Race Horse, and its 3500 yards of
canvas, the boat zigzagged over 4700 miles of water from Bos-
ton to Marseilles, and consumed thirty-four days. She bore
up against prolonged headwinds, lost her bowsprit, her run-
ner, and part of her bulwarks, and treated the passengers to
a terrific Christmas storm, with yawning water caverns, steep
mountain waves, vivid lightning, and reverberating thunder
— magnificent and terrible phenomena which Mr. Phelps wit-
nessed with "mingled emotions of awe, surprise, and ad-
miration." With returning sunshine, he felt a deep and
abiding delight in the exquisite coloring of sunset and sun-
rise. He was quickly responsive to the beautiful, or to mili-
tary strength as at Gibraltar, or to the tragic, as at Chateau
d' If, or to the historic, as at Elba.

He traveled without haste, spending three months in Rome,
under Pope Pius IX. as civil ruler. Here he conscientiously
visited the ancient, mediaeval, and modern city, from the
earliest aqueduct to the latest studio, of which I will give no
guidebook catalogue. He was impressed by the Roman ritual,
saw the stately pomp of Candlemas and Easter in St. Peter's,
and witnessed the lengthy ceremonial by Cardinal Ferrati
of receiving the Countess Barcaroli as a nun, and he adds,
" Immediately afterwards we received from her own hands,
in another part of the Church, cakes and candies as the
closing entertainment of the day — this being her farewell to
the world and its sins." He continues:

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 89

"It was fine to see Old Rome where the frequent cele-
brations and festivals were held, the interest in them in-
creased by the presence of Pope, cardinal, and monk, with
all the glittering pomp and quaint apparel, and to witness
with subdued delight the most gorgeous ceremonials of that
powerful Church."

Mr. Phelps received much kind hospitality from Crawford,
the sculptor, and met, at his dinner table, Lockhart, the son-
in-law of Walter Scott. Phelps traveled for five months
with Dr. L. S. Burridge, who was a great source of pleasure
and instruction. The latter was, I infer, the brother-in-law
of Cephas G. Thompson, the New-Church artist, who is also
mentioned. Among the great art centres, the fine minor cities
of Italy were not neglected. The traveler returned by Switzer-
land, France and England. To twentieth century eyes, the
striking feature of the sojourn abroad in 1853-4 was the
small travel by rail. In looking back over his journey, he
says:

" I distinctly call to mind the old-fashioned and unsightly
vehicles used in the common work of life, and the clumsy
coaches ^ — diligence and vettura — which transported travel-
ers at five miles an hour from one end of Italy to another.
It was my privilege, — and it gratified a curiosity — to be
carried from place to place in those rustic and heavy convey-
ances, drawn by poor horses which were harnessed by a
mingled combination of rope, leather and chains."

Mr. Phelps saw the advantage of a non-conducted tour,
since he could quietly and tranquilly visit galleries and noble
architectural structures, often alone; he was thereby per-
mitted greater individuality of action, more careful judg-
ment, the enlargement of his powers of observation, better
student work, and increased usefulness as a critic. He quotes
a writer who compares mammoth excursions "to a parcel-
delivery business, where tourists are passive instruments,
marked, numbered, and warehoused according to terms of
invoice." The following shows the practical side of the
Phelps character:

" I was absent a little more than nine months, and traveled
a distance of over 11,000 miles. The total expenses — in-

90 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

eluding $50.00 for clothing, and $50.00 for souvenirs for
friends — amounted to $732.83."

Mr. Phelps's diary is prefaced with the verse from Isaiah,
xl, 31, beginning, "But they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength." He was entertained by the New
Churchman abroad, Hiram Powers, the Florence sculptor,
and gladly renewed his religious affiliations there. He was
of a sunny, pliable nature. His mother, Sarah, was a sister
of Chief Justice Parsons, and Arthur had much of the catho-
licity of taste and interest shown in his cousin. Professor
Theophilus Parsons. He happily forsook his bachelorhood,
and married Miss Harriet Pratt, who joined the Boston So-
ciety in 1866. They were our valued Roxbury neighbors
for many years.

I was present at the last communion service of Arthur
Phelps in his chamber, administered with most impressive
solemnity by Rev. James Reed. Mr. Phelps was on the very
verge of the other world, and it was as if the gates were a
bit ajar, and the heavenly radiance shone on or through his
face. The unselfish Ellen Andrews was present, having fur-
nished a carriage to bring over his beloved brother Francis,
who followed him to the happy land of reunions in the same
year, 1897. The devoted wife still survives.

Thomas Doliber formed an indissoluble triumvirate of
warm friends with George Ropes and Frank Whitney. He
married Miss Ada Heath, and with his ardent temperament
and enthusiasm for good church music, happy was the Society
that counted him among its members. His wife was exceed-
ingly well endowed mentally, and solved the problem of
juvenile books which were both elevating and interesting by
testing them on the six children of her household. The Doli-
ber musical parties in Brookline were a delight, with their
high order of English glees, madrigals, and carols for boys'
voices under a trained leader.

John P. Perry (1819-1886), a Dartmouth alumnus, re-
ceived authority to preach in the Orthodox Congregational
Church. But his devout study of Scripture led him to be-
lieve in the Unity of God in One Person, and of man's early
resurrection from the body. Swedenborg confirmed his Bible

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 91

deductions, and he entered our ministry in 1852. I knew
his treasure of a Danish wife, Emma Rusch Perry. They
still live in their New-Church sons, Chauncey of Waltham,
and John of California, and in their artistic daughter Emilie,
whom we all recall when we see the significant design of our
League pin.

Nathanail Hobart (1794-1840) was the third Harvard
student of Swedenborgian bias to go wooing among Captain
Clark's flock of daughters at Waltham. He was in Caleb
Cushing's class of 1813, but did not graduate. The Hobart
family in this country dates back seven generations to Ed-
mund of 1633. Nathanael's great-grandfather Isaac (1700-
1775) of Abington was clever at civil engineering, and
possessed a Puritan conscience. Through inadvertance in
forgetting the day, he started his grist mill going one Sunday
morning. Reminded at ten a.m. by a passing neighbor of
this infraction of the Holy Day, he instantly stopped his
mill, hastily dressed for church, and attended service. On
the following Monday he kept himself and his family from
all labor until ten a.m. to balance the previous day.

The Waltham Clarks where young Hobart sought a wife
were of similar ancestry, and Waltham had known them for
four or five generations. Benjamin Worcester says of them:

" Their honesty and piety were of the simple, practical
sort by which, when they had sold wood at a price, and the
market price fell before its delivery, they would take but
the reduced price; and if beans were wanted for the Sun-
day's dinner, they must be gathered and shelled before Sat-
urday's sun went down." They were sturdy, rugged men.
Congregational deacons, holding state offices of trust because
of their probity. Captain Clark's son Calvin brought home
strange Swedenborgian news from Cambridge. Doubt and
fear were in the old folks' mind, but their hearts told them
that what they heard from the lips of the serious-minded,
plain-speaking young collegians, who came on marriage in-
tent, must be true. They studied its eff'ect on character, and,
twenty years later, followed their children into the Boston
Society.

Nathanael Hobart chose Lydia, the most decisive of the

92 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Clark daughters. She assisted at home in farm, garden,
dairy and kitchen. After thirteen happy years of married
life, her husband was lost in the tragedy of the Long Island
Sound boat, Lexington, being, like his great-girandfather
Aaron in 1705, "drowned in sailing toward Boston." Na-
thanael was wise in choosing a strong-spirited, firm-willed,
heroic-hearted maiden for his wife. She was now left with
four fatherless children, and slender financial resources;
but she trusted in God, and opened a school. Her son,
Nathan, a lad of eleven, grew sturdily, was a comfort to her,
married at twenty-eight, and furnished children to the Wal-
tham New-Church school. Mrs. Lydia Hobart's little two-
year-old soon followed his father to the summer land. The
two daughters, Sarah and Cornelia, were transplanted to the
other life at nineteen and twenty-one years of age (Benja-
min Hobart's Abington, pp. 275, 276, 392, 393) . Benjamin
Worcester says:

" The loveliness, the affection, the brilliancy of soul were
never more manifest than with these two noble girls in their
last days; and in this way the distinction between the living
soul and the wasting body became strikingly clear. The elder,
who was taken first, was so far withdrawn in soul from the
suffering body that she would speak in pity of the sick girl
as of another person, so gently was the separation and re-
moval made. A little later, the soul of the other daughter,
radiant with the love of heaven, stole away on the last gently
expiring breath. Her mother, prepared by a wonderful
dream, had not a tear to shed, only saying, 'How beautiful! '
Her strong natural feelings were gently loosed and chastened,
and made to give place to the self-denying spiritual love
which rejoiced more in their gain than the natural suffers
from their loss" (copied with slight transposition from New-
Church Messenger of May 26, 1886). Mr. Worcester fur-
ther says of his Aunt Lydia that scholars sought her out for
love and sympathy. To her came ministers and doctors,
lawyers and teachers, their wives and their children, for
counsel and encouragement.

In 1879 I spent a half day with Mrs. Lydia Hobart, after
a Sunday sermon by Mr. Benjamin Worcester. She was in

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 93

pleasant rooms in her son's Waltham home. We discussed
old friends, old days, old manners, old ways. I asked her
concerning two persons whom we knew who went abroad,
and left the New-Church fold for the Church of Rome. Her
solution of the problem was gentle. She said that our simple
service seemed inadequate, and they sought for a richer
ritual to give expression to their devotional natures. As she
herself required nothing of the kind, it showed a certain
largeness of horizon that she could put herself in their place.
She was a septuagenarian, but her mental and physical powers
seemed intact. I asked if she did not sometimes take a little
siesta on a suhry afternoon; but she replied, "Never," and
she sat for six hours as erect as a pine tree, and insisted on
my remaining until dusk lest I get a sunstroke. Her clear-cut
outline of character was already mellowing under a certain
haze which diffuses over great natures in the autumn of life.
But her love of self-reliance and her vigorous will — quick-
ened under her burden of widowhood — yielded only after
a struggle. She succeeded ; and many a person came to light
their little taper of courage at her great torch of heroism.

Timothy Harrington Carter went also to Captain Clark's
for a wife. He chose Martha, the most affectionate of the
three sisters whom I knew. She was winning in personality,
and demonstrative in manner; over her comely face expres-
sion came and went like shimmering sunlight through foliage
on the grass. I saw her last in 1868, when she planned a
week for me at her house. It never materialized to my great
loss. The more Clarks the better, in this world. Mr. Thomas
Worcester's daughter, Mrs. Thomas Thacher, told me that
Mrs. Carter most resembled her own mother, Alice Clark
Worcester. The short-lived daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Carter
— Mary — married Edwin Hale Abbott, Harvard tutor, then
lawyer, always the staunch friend of Rev. James Reed. At
the New-Church Convention of 1855 in Boston, my attention
was called to a beautiful group of girls — five cousins. I
can recall four: Mary Carter, Cornelia Hobart, Lizzie Reed,
and Helen Reed. The first three were granddaughters of
Capt. John Clark of Waltham.

The procession of New-Church brides from the old sea-

94 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

captain's roof is closed. Alice Clark Worcester in 1821;
Lydia Clark Hobart in 1827; Catharine Clark Reed in 1832
on Christmas Day; Martha Clark Carter in 1833. The last
three joined the Boston Society in 1827; Alice much earlier.
The parents followed the footsteps of their daughters and
of their son Calvin; and with their youngest son, Luther,
they joined the Boston Society in 1835, aged sixty-eight and
sixty-six respectively.

Harrington Carter's maternal great-grandfather is worth
knowing. The Rev. Timothy Harrington was settled as an
Orthodox Congregational clergyman in Lancaster, Massa-
chusetts, in 1748, on an annual salary of $213.33. The
salary rose to $300.00, but fell back in 1788, "because
the currency was fluctuating, it being determined by the
price of rye, Indian corn, beef and pork." In 1792, owing
to Mr. Harrington's advanced age, his parishioners consulted
him "touching his inclinations concerning a colleague, and
a highly respectable committee was raised for this delicate
business." Finally, one of the deacons thought that enough
candidates had been heard, but those with " itching ears " de-
sired to hear more.

Mr. Harrington's pastorate of forty-seven years closed in
the year 1795; and Rev. Nathanael Thayer was made his
successor. The new incumbent, born in 1769, a descendant
of Rev. John Cotton, was a strictly Orthodox believer who
drifted consciously or unconsciously into conservative Uni-
tarianism. Mr. Harrington was too feeble to witness his
induction into office, but was carried to the front of his
house, where, with tears in his eyes, and white locks stream-
ing, he gave his benediction to his young colleague as he
passed by.

The Carters were conspicuous in the annals of the town in
the eighteenth century, were moderators, selectmen, and dele-
gates to the General Court or State Legislature (History of
Lancaster, pp. 335, 462). Deacon Horatio Carter resigned
office because, in 1830, he had embraced the doctrines of the
New Jerusalem. The pastor furnished him with a certificate
of his regular standing in his church.

Timothy Harrington Carter (1798-1894), descendant of

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 95

the good old Orthodox divine, Timothy Harrington, came to
Boston from Lancaster in 1819, with an early love of books
and with aptitude for their production; he now added suc-
cessful experience. After study abroad in 1827, he formed
the partnership of Carter, Hendee & Co., secured a lease of
the land on Washington and School Streets, and brought the
first literary associations to the spot known later as The Old
Corner Book Store. The land extending up School Street nearly
to the present City Hall was granted about 1630 under King
Charles I to William Hutchinson, but he lost it in 1638
through the radicalism of his wife Anne, who received ec-
clesiastical trial for "traducing the ministers" and was ex-
communicated. The present Old Corner building was erected
in 1712. More than a century later Carter enlarged it, and
we know the quaint building with its gambrel roof rich in
windows. Up School Street Carter ran a continuous block,
behind which were his seven printing presses run by a team
of Canadian horses. He brought up his business from $1,400
to $4,000 a year. Unable to renew his lease of land, he sold
out to Messrs. John Allen and William D. Ticknor, serving
as silent partner and adviser."^

Mr. Carter joined the Boston Society in 1821, published
volumes of Swedenborg at his own expense, and was a
Father Bountiful, erecting at his own cost in 1832 the Phillips
Place building for the Boston Society's place of worship.
Unworldliness in finance and generous giving were charac-
teristics of early Boston New Churchmen. The ladies raised
fifty dollars to send abroad for a set of the Arcana as a gift
to their pastor; and Mr. Worcester was one of many to pay
tithes to the Church treasury.

Mrs. Emeline Staniford Holt Ticknor added much de-
votional and social value to the Boston Society. Her father
was Master of the old Mayhew School of Boston, and her
grandfather. Rev. Thomas Baldwin, was a Baptist clergyman
of influence. On the hallowed Christmas day in 1832, Eme-
line married William D. Ticknor, both the bride and the
bridegroom being only twenty years of age. A miniature of

* See pp. 15-17, 22, in Hawthorne and His Publisher, by Caroline Ticknor, 339
pp., Boston and New York, Houghton MitHin Company, 1913.

96 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

him at thirty discloses a high forehead framed in curling
hair, brilliant blue eyes, fine features, high coat collar, and
the white waistcoat and voluminous white neckcloth of the
period. I knew her in later years, and recognized her per-
sonal charm and sweetness, together with a heroic calm born
of self-conquest when seeing three of her seven children
successively pass to the other life before her. The sweet-
spirited Alice grew up to maidenhood; and her last little
social outing away from home — because of enfeebled health
— was at our Roxbury home. At the early sunset of Alice's
life she loved to watch serenely the beautiful tints of the
earthly sunset sky. Her sister Emeline shared to the end her
devoted love of the New Church.

John H. Wilkins (1794-1861) early showed his bent by
laboring assiduously for a college education, entering Har-
vard in 1814 as a beneficiary student. He received several
Boylston prizes as a writer, and his range extended from the
realm of science to that of the imagination. His elementary
treatise on Astronomy helped young people to love the stars;
and he said of the bard of Avon:

" Shakespeare may sometimes nod like Homer. But to
this we will not object if he will tell us his dreams."

The son of a deacon, and the grandson of a clergyman of
Amherst, New Hampshire, young Wilkins's religious nature
was aroused by a church revival, but his inquiring mind
failed of satisfaction in the current tenets of theology {New-
Church Messenger, July 29, 1903). Learning of the New
Church through his classmate, Thomas Worcester, he wrote
from Taunton just after his graduation:

" I have been attending to Heaven and Hell. I cannot tell
where I shall come to. I can only pray that I may be guided
right and to the truth; but can say nothing against the work,
for I find nothing in it but what I think I should act the
better for fully believing. I have read some of it to the
people with whom I board. But it is too high for their
adoption. Heaven and hell are not visible, and consequently
must be a great ways off." Again in 1819:

" I have been reading with considerable rapidity the
'Divine Providence.' ... I want very much to hear from

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 97

brother Goddard ; to hear how he digests this new food. . . .
We have set out on a very important and difficult journey;
and it becomes us to take heed to our ways, and to keep a
conscience pure and unspotted. . . . Our prospect in this
world is certainly not most encouraging. Popular prejudice
will meet us at every corner" {Fiftieth Anniversary of Bos-
ton Society, pp. 26, 27).

Mr. Wilkins re-entered Harvard, and joined its Theological
School with Sampson Reed and Thomas Worcester; but upon
the latter being appointed leader of the New-Church move-
ment in Boston, the two others promptly recognized his su-
periority, and willingly remained laymen. Wilkins was
book publisher for thirty years, and successively bank presi-
dent, state senator, and varied office holder in the Church.
In 1822, with an income of only $300.00, he approved the
Boston Society's decision to adopt paying Church tithes. He
was proportionately generous in his subsequent prosperity.
You may see, in the vestry of the Boston Society, a fine por-
trait of him by Cephas G. Thompson.

In 1826 Mr. Wilkins married the widow, Mrs. Thomazine
Minot, who, through her first husband, furnished her daugh-
ters as brides to Caleb Reed, Dr. Luther Clark, and Joseph
Andrews.

Mrs. Wilkins wrote excellent religious juvenile books in-
culating New-Church principles. Many of us have had our
little souls profitably fed by her Early Lessons; and one
work was translated into German by the wife of Prof. Im-
manuel Tafel of Tiibingen under the title, Unterricht vom
Evigen Leben fiir Kinder.

To study, business, and religion, Mr. Wilkins added travel,
going abroad in 1833, visiting profitably in London, and
procuring rare original editions of the Writings {New Jeru-
salem Magazine, vol. vii, p. 59).

The Silver family were once guests under Mr. Wilkins's
roof. Before me lies his gift to myself; The Music of Nature
by William Gardiner, 1841 — a curious and learned work,
analyzing composers from Purcell to Cherubini, vocalists
from Garcia to Malibran, also musical instruments, bird
songs, animal noises; and giving myriad sounds in musical

98 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

notation — from the false ring of a counterfeit shiUing, to the
roar of a storm.

William J. Cutler was another layman who strengthened
the foundations of the Boston Society. His geniality was like
the cement that unites, and his steadfastness like the stone that
makes firm. He was true even to the very last day of his life,
serving his dear Church on Sunday morning, in distributing
the Holy Communion elements, and falling into the last sweet
brief sleep while in his arm chair in the afternoon.

He married in 1857 the widow of Richard B. Carter. Her
maiden name was Lucy Lazelle Hobart, daughter of the
veteran Benjamin of Abington. She possessed great per-
sonal beauty and much grace of manner. She brought four
Carter sons into her second home, three of whom died sud-
denly by accident; but her spiritual poise exceeded that of
anyone I ever knew. Persons who will meet tragedy with
Christian fortitude as she did manifest grave perturbation
of spirit from petty annoyances. I have seen Mrs. Cutler
tested in foreign travel. We go to a small Italian station
for a steam train. The scheduled time passes. We await;
not in an H. H. Richardson station as in the Newtons, with
its artistic curved roof, and vines clambering charmingly
over the window panes; but in a prosaic building with hard
benches and poor ventilation. The train, in true dolce far
niente fashion, and without visible excuse, arrives an hour
late; but Mrs. Cutler is as tranquil as an Indian summer day.
She has learned how to meet life at all angles.

Amelia is another daughter of Benjamin Hobart. Observe
his steel engraving portrait lying before me. Every feature
is decisive. He is of firm moral fibre. Amelia was less
pliable than her sister Lucy; she had much of her father's
sturdiness of will, combined with a warm emotional nature.
Her only love story was her husband, William H. Dunbar,
whom she had known from childhood — a fine man, and
admirably fitted for her. He was sixth in descent from Robert
Dunbar of Hingham of the early seventeenth century. Will-
iam and Amelia were married in 1840; and they handed
the New Church on to the fifth generation from Benjamin,
through their daughter Lucy, who became the wife of Edward

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 99

Cutler, of St. Paul, Minnesota, and whose grandchild was
rocked in a New-Church cradle.

It was a delight to see Mrs. Amelia Hobart Dunbar's very
strong will gradually bending to the Divine will; to see her
vision gradually directing itself more and more exclusively
to the things of the spirit. In the last week of her fatal ill-
ness in April, 1910, the nurse gave me a brief interview.
We were alone. Shining through her marble face was the
radiant spirit. She had said at the end of my ten weeks'
visit in 1894, " Miss Silver, I shall always love you." Now,
her little refrain was, " Miss Silver, I love you, I love you."
It reminded me of the aged apostle John, carried up the
aisle in his chair, and repeating his message, " Little children,
love one another."

Waldo Cutler was another of the four brothers who rep-
resented religion in commercial life, and thereby fortified
the Church. His wife was steadfast in friendship, fair of
face, and winning in personality. How well I recall her
sense of riches as she and her husband stood proudly at
their Silver Wedding among their seven children. Her old-
fashioned piety stirred her to keep alive the custom of reading
her Bible through every year — three chapters each week
day, and five chapters for Sunday. It was a privilege to
her to serve the church, especially in its devotional duties;
and never could the Rev. Thomas Worcester, the Rev. James
Reed, and the Rev. H. Clinton Hay have had a parishioner
of more unswerving loyalty.

Abram Cutler, brother of William and Waldo, and quite
as much of a sustaining power, married Marcia, a sister of
the Rev. Frank Sewall of fragrant memory. After serving
Boston, they became pillars of strength in the Brookline
Society. She lived as a young maiden under Mr. Worcester's
roof, and has given me many reminiscences of old days.
She was a warm friend of Mrs. James Edgerly, who, as
little Sophronia Wilder, attended a school kept by Lyman
Abbott's brother Charles, at the corner of Temple Place and
Tremont Street. She was then a Unitarian child, and strayed
one day into a New-Church wedding in Phillips Place. She
grew up to learn of our faith, married Mr. Edgerly, and had

100 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

a capacious pocket for the benefit of our church fairs. Her
religion was tested when her husband and nine of her ten
children preceded her to the other world, but she conquered,
and her life became serene.

David L. Webster was one of those men of affairs who
consecrated his profits by enriching the Boston Society's
exchequer, and whose well-filled hand reached to the border-
lands of missionary work. He was generous in time, as chair-
man of the church committee for many years. He handed
down the spirit of hospitality to his son Andrew, who, in
1878, played host at the White Mountains to Mr. George
Broadfield of England — a New Churchman and man of
leisure who, in Mr. John Worcester's little forest that sum-
mer, as he sat on the grass surrounded by a group of acquaint-
ances, drew from his pocket Daisy Miller, and regaled us with
Henry James's genial and observant satire. Mr. Broadfield
sang himself into the hearts of the Americans; and, at an
earlier period, the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Ed-
ward VH, had enjoyed his stirring and pathetic English
ballads. As I may not return to the Broadfields, I might
say, in passing, that I met the elder brother, Mr. Edward
John Broadfield, at a social gathering of the General Con-
vention at the house of Mr. James Baxter of Portland in
1880. The incidental introduction on this occasion of Mr.
Broadfield to the Rev. Edwin Gould of Montreal was most
interesting. They discussed two contrasting types of public
men: the first was a champion of Gladstone, the second a
champion of Disraeli, each well equipped, and able to wield
arguments for his favorite. Mr. Broadfield, leader of the
London New-Church Centennial of 1910, has been called
to the higher life. The Rev. Frank Sewall says:

"The public press of Manchester [England] has overflowed
with tributes to Mr. Edward John Broadfield, including that
of the Dean of the Cathedral, recognizing his great service as
an educator and teacher in everything that elevates and re-
fines society."

Mr. David Webster at his own Boston hearthstone was
generous in a lordly manner to his acquaintances; the house
was spacious, a hundred members of the New-Church Club

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 101

including friends being easily entertained of an evening.
The menage had an easy margin every day, and the adding
at any time of an unexpected guest at dinner was but the
drawing up of an extra chair, the adding of another plate.
His Church interest continued to the last of his eighty-nine
years. My last interview was characteristic: he, when near
his end, inquired eagerly and minutely regarding the recent
session of the Massachusetts Association; he had had several
versions; he wished still another point of view. He handed
down good blood to his grandsons who serve Dr. Grenfell
in Labrador, or make the supreme sacrifice in the World
War, with equal devotion. David Webster was a consistent
conservative, conscientious in his well-defined convictions,
and firm of will.

John Webster, brother of David, was more pliable, less
granite-like in will, and equally loyal to the New Church.
I only knew him after his second marriage to Mary Moulton
of Bangor, who warmly embraced the religious faith of her
husband. She was very proud of him, a man of kindly spirit,
attractive face, and erect figure, adorned through all the years
with the ruffled shirt-front at dinner. He was bravely patri-
otic, giving the life of an only son in the Civil War.

The Boston Webster home diffused much hospitality. In
1893 you might meet there Miss Laura Hughes of the Train-
ing School at Cambridge, England, who would tell us of
Newnham and Girton. Or, again, a native of Finland, leader
of a woman orchestra, who would sing and translate charac-
teristic folk songs of her own land. Or, on April 2, 1880,
guests would hear the musical version of Cox and Box with
the versatile Mr. George Broadfield in a prominent role.
Or, on December, 1895, you might hear Mrs. Ballington
Booth in Mrs. Webster's drawing-room. Here were opulent
persons ready to sign large bank checks in furtherance of her
good prison-reform work. Here were clergymen, wearing a
badge — a five-dollar annual pledge to say a good word for
the cause — among them Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and
Rev. Julian K. Smyth; also Rev. Charles F. Beale, who rep-
resented Congregationalism, and who said to me:

"Miss Silver, I often look at you Swedenborgians, and

102 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

wonder if you ever lose heart; for your growth is slow and
your numbers are small. But let me tell you, that you never
would be discouraged if you look at yourselves as I look at
you; for you exercise an influence out of all proportion to
your numbers."

Samuel Worcester (1793-1844) preceded his brother
Thomas into this world, and was his forerunner in the dis-
covery of the New Church. The boys' birthplace was Thorn-
ton, New Hampshire. Their eyes were gladdened and their
roaming feet tempted by a certain mountain in Merrimack
County. Their little lips could not pronounce its old Indian
name, Cowissewaschook, but it improved in time and was
called Kyar-Sarga; now its name is Kearsarge. Samuel
did not live long enough to hear how white oak was cut from
it, how a ship was fashioned and named for it, and how
Admiral Winslow was assigned to the Kearsarge, which
gained victory in a big sea fight in the Bay of Biscay during
the Civil War.

The Worcesters moved to Massachusetts, and Samuel, when
twenty-one, made the acquaintance of Edward Dowse, who
had learned of Swedenborg's writings through the Rev. Will-
iam Hill in 1794, and who presented young Worcester sev-
eral volumes of the early London edition in English, "printed
and sold by R. Hindmarsh, Printer to His Royal Highness,
the Prince of Wales [afterwards King George IV.] Old
Bailey, 1795." Samuel was profoundly grateful for books
that enlightened his intellect, gratified his love of theology,
and touched his heart,

"although for a time, when the Sabbath came round, he
would put them carefully by, fearing there was a possibility
of their being a temptation that might lead him to desecrate
the holy day."

The shadow of doubt soon passed away, and in 1817 he
began gathering together those interested in the Writings for
study and worship, and thus laid the earliest foundation of
the Boston Society organization. There was a group of young
people who loved to consider Samuel Worcester as one.

Whose single eye with glance sublime,
Looked to Eternity through time,

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 103

and among them was the lively-spirited maiden to whom
he lent his wonderful books, and who became his wife, and
to whose vivacious pen we are indebted for much material.
Her name was Sarah Sargent, she was the daughter of a
wealthy Gloucester merchant, and was educated in a life of
ease. Samuel and Sarah, born the same year, were married
January 2, 1817, aged twenty-three, and were called fanatics
and visionaries in religious faith by the outside, unappreci-
ative world; but nothing could move his indomitable will,
or curb her elastic spirit. She tells us of introducing Thomas
Worcester to Margaret Gary, and of the tumbling of her
pretty white dress:

"My husband found pleasure and profit from his inter-
views with Miss Gary, and also from corresponding with
her. In the spring or early summer, we had a holiday, and
accepted an invitation from Miss Gary, to pass it with her at
her mother's house (The Retreat) in Ghelsea. We made
our arrangements to go early, procuring a conveyance from
a neighboring farmer — a high canvas-topped chaise, with
a nice, fat, sleek, grey horse. This was hardly as aristo-
cratic a turn-out as I had been accustomed to, but it was
the best we could get, and satisfactory enough, particularly
when we called to mind we were to pass the day with Miss
Gary; and we jogged along quite comfortably. I had made
but few set visits from the time of my marriage: so I dressed
in white, and felt quite glad that I had room enough to
keep my dress smooth and nice till we should present our-
selves at Miss Gary's door; when suddenly, as we were passing
through Cambridge, the chaise was stopped, and my husband
called 'Jump in, jump in! we are going to see Miss Gary,
and can take you along as well as not.' The invitation was
accepted, and his brother Thomas added a third to our num-
ber. I certainly did not enjoy the addition at the time, but
in after years I had many a merry thought over that ride,
and so had Miss Gary, who was watching for us as we drove
up. This was certainly Mr. Thomas Worcester's first visit
to Miss Gary. Indeed, I believe it was his first introduction
to her. We were cordially welcomed by all the family, and
passed a delightful day, returning home at nightfall in the

104 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

same style. Those were primitive times in the Church com-
pared with the present" (see Semi-Centennial, pp. 16-21).
Mrs. Sarah Sargent Worcester lived to be a nonogenarian.
Her picture shown me by her granddaughter, Mrs. Willis ,
Gilpatrick, reveals brilliant eyes and handsome features
framed by vivacious curls. She was, according to tradition,
as vivacious as the curls themselves. I knew three interesting
lines of her descendants, among them New-Church clergy-
men, although sometimes ^sculapius was found very near
the pulpit. Among Sarah's nine children I will mention (i)
Sarah Parsons Worcester (1821-1884), who became Mrs.
Charles John Doughty of Brooklyn, and endeavored to make
us into good little boys and girls through her excellent stories
in the Children s New-Church Magazine, (ii) Rev. Samuel
Howard Worcester (1824-1891), a Brown alumnus, a phy-
sician, a pastor, and a scholarly translator of Swedenborg's
writings. He married twice, and among his fourteen children
was Samuel, born in 1847, a New-Church clergyman and
noted homeopathic alienist, who served at the Guiteau trial
at Washington. Another son of Rev. Samuel Howard Worces-
ter is Dr. John Fonerden Worcester (named for the beloved
Baltimore physician) who, with his wife (Anna Jackson
Lowe) enriched the Roxbury New-Church Society until the
alluring West drew them to Portland, Oregon, (iii) Dr.
Edward Worcester (1830-1911), father of Mrs. Gilpatrick,
was educated medically in New York, France and England,
was for four years surgeon on the high seas, and contributed
service to Johns Hopkins University, (iv) Emma married
Dr. John Turner of Brooklyn, whose son, Dr. Maurice Worces-
ter Turner, formerly with the Boston University and the
Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, was appointed in 1911
President of the International Hahnemannian Association.
He is in the Brookline New-Church Society.

Professor Theophilus Parsons came of good lineage for
earnestness of conviction. Observe his grandfather:

Moses Parsons (1716-1783) was an Orthodox clergyman
of Byfield, Massachusetts. He was anti-Calvinist and pro-
Arminian in faith. But he could sharpen his pen on occa-
sion, and he preached trenchantly against King George HI

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 105

from Proverbs xxi, 1, 2. This sermon was delivered in 1772,
a critical and highly sensitive political period, and he faced
the Tory Governor Hutchinson in the audience.

Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons (1750-1813) reacted
against his father's liberal theological views. He was one
of the strongest and most influential supporters of Presby-
terianism, regarding which Whittier wrote:

The church-spires lift their vain defence,

As if to scatter the bohs of God

With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod.

The Chief Justice had "a natural proclivity to the extreme
of conservatism. His Sunday observances were exact and
severe: no pleasure-riding, no light reading, no discussion
of business on the Lord's Day." He once said of a friend
who had left the Calvinistic faith, and whose belief was in-
definite :

"He is like a bird that has escaped from a cage, and is
now afraid to alight upon the branch of a living tree lest
it should prove another cage" (from Memoir by his son
Theophilus, pp. 308, 310, 321).

Professor Theophilus Parsons was not afraid, in his youth,
lest the New Church should prove a dangerous cage, and
fetter the wings of rational thought. He was one of ten
Harvard alumni to join the Boston Society in 1823. Until
his declining health as an octogenarian forbade him, he
was constant in his pew under the Rev. Thomas Worcester,
his senior, who was ripening with the years; and also con-
stant under the Rev. James Reed, who was nearly forty years
the professor's junior. It is said that for fifty consecutive
years he never missed the recurring administration of the
Holy Supper. His published Essays, three series, began in
collected book form in 1845, and were rich in observation on
life and in spiritual suggestions. (For his astonishing variety
of topics, see, under Parsons, the Index of New Jerusalem
Magazine, issued in June, 1872.)

Peleg Whitman Chandler (1816-1889) was, according to
Dr. Nathanael C. Towle, another " strong man in Thomas
Worcester's cabinet." His intellect impressed me in two

106 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

ways: by its markedly vigorous fibre, and by its stimulating
quality in conversation. Intellectually and socially he had
a wide horizon; he had come in contact through the law and
elsewhere with many sorts and conditions of men which had
enlarged his point of view. I saw him to advantage in a
temporary club which met in the Tremont Street New-Church
Bookrooms. His paper before that body was juicy and full
of life, without a dull line in it. Professor Parsons was an
appreciative listener, and Mr. Francis Phelps was uncon-
sciously the conservative watchman on the tower to summon
us back to the Swedenborg references which he knew so well.
Education was one of the topics, and Bronson Alcott was
there with his characteristic contribution. Another topic was
Jesus Christ, and Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney was present. I re-
member her simile: "The sun is in the bright sparkle in the
dewdrop; but the sparkle is derived from something above
and beyond the dewdrop itself. We, likewise, are images
of Christ in this secondary sense." We already loved her for
her books, and we were impressed that evening with a marked
receptivity of spirit as if she wished to be taught of the Lord.

Peleg Chandler was graduated from Bowdoin in 1834,
in 1845 engaged in organizing the Sivedenborg Association
for the Dissemination of a True Philosophy, and early joined
the Boston Society. After his death, Mr. Charles Theodore
Russell, a lawyer, gave a superb laudatory analysis of his
mental processes, and concludes:

" He was not overtolerant of what he regarded as visionary
and impracticable, and was not overburdened with sentimen-
tality. . . . I do not think he was much given to building air-
castles, and as little to rearing air-dungeons. He took life
practically, cheerfully, providently, and resolutely, to the
last degree."

Mr. Russell draws from intimate personal intercourse a
phase of Mr. Chandler's home life — his family worship.
I abbreviate a bit:

"I do not think I shall intrude on the sanctities of do-
mestic life if I close by reference to one scene there, at
Brunswick, Maine, daily repeated, and which, as the ripened
fruit of the mellowing autumn of life, has fixed itself in my

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 107

memory as the dearest and sweetest remembrance of my
long-honored friend. Each day, ere the day's duties and
pleasures began, there gathered to his library the children,
grandchildren, and inmates of his household, where the
service was just that loving and attractive one which the
long cherished and benevolent views of its conductor would
lead us to expect.

" Doubtless some of Mr. Chandler's views would have some-
what disturbed the theology of the Calvinistic Covenanters
of Scotland, yet I doubt not and I am sure I felt on these
occasions, I was witnessing a devotion as pure, sincere, fer-
vent and simple, as that which Burns has made immortal in
The Cotter's Saturday Night. If I were compelled to select
from all my intercourse with Mr. Chandler but one scene
to be cherished and remembered, I would take that of the
summer morning prayer in his library at Brunswick."

George B. Davis will long be remembered for extraordi-
narily extended and devoted service to the Boston Society;
he knew it in the Phillips Place days; and his wife will long
be loved as a home-maker for young girls. Friends will
pleasantly recall his brother Horatio, and his nephew Roscoe.

I have written an earlier chapter. The Rainbow-hued Story
of Margaret Cary, which will be supplemented, chiefly be-
cause of her relation to the Thomas Worcester family. On
her entering it, she was fifty-seven, Mr. Worcester being
twenty years her junior. She copied Mr. Worcester's sermons
by the hundred, as a trunkful of them at our Boston Book
Rooms will testify. She had accepted our faith more than
thirty-five years before, and no clergyman ever had a more
devoted disciple. She exercised a beautiful influence over
the children, and loved their mother.

In this year, 1832, we must picture the Worcesters living
on Beacon Street at corner of Tremont. Now, those streets
are threaded and interlaced with vehicles, from which the
traffic policeman mercifully saves the lives of pedestrians.
Then, the enclosed corner was, as Mrs. Catharine Worcester
Thacher, the daughter, has described it to me, a spacious open
ground surrounding their brick house painted white, with
generous rooms each side of the front door. The Phillips

108 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Place Hall for worship was their neighbor until the Church
migrated, in 1845, to Bowdoin Street, and the Worcesters
migrated to Louisburg Square.

Before me lie the original letters, covering nine years
of the Worcester life, written by Miss Gary to her intimate
friend, Mrs. Henry A. Worcester (Olive Gay). The angel
of the resurrection is calling " dear little Anna Worcester,"
aged nine, daughter of Thomas Worcester.

"April 26, 1841. She (Anna) is aware of her situation,
occasionally speaks of the spiritual world, and has told her
mother that it would not trouble her to know she was going
. . . she has taken great pleasure in reading chiefly story
books, besides her Bible, which she reads every day, and
loves to hear her mother's voice in the Sermon on the Mount.

"Alice (Mrs. Thomas Worcester) has been devoted to her
day and night, but on the whole has had a quiet and profit-
able winter. She has had her work table and book always at
hand in the chamber, and except when Anna was in immediate
pain, there has been a serenity and pleasant sphere that
natural parents in the indulgence of anxiety, without a trust
in Providence, could not conceive of."

"Louisburg Square, July 6, 1841. Dear little Anna is out
at grandfather's at Waltham, very feeble, very interesting.
Miriam asked her if she would as lief go to the spiritual world
from there as from Boston. She said yes, she would rather.
She is quite resigned and willing to go. Her father and five
of the children went out to see her today.

"9 o'clock. Dear Alice just returned with her husband.
The closing scene took place at 2. Anna's pains were very
severe, but she was very gentle, and said, ' It seems to me,
Mother, that there is nothing left for me to do, but to see the
body die.' A few days before she went she called Jamie
(who at less than two years old had preceded her to the other
world), and she said that she saw him and Uncle Nathanael."

Sunshine and shadow chase across Miss Gary's pages. In
1846, Terpsichore, under a ban elsewhere, is admitted, and
several dancing parties are given in the home, Elizabeth
being nineteen. But life grows more serious as her mother
drifts slowly toward the other world. " She who loved activ-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 109

ity was enforcedly idle, she who loved social intercourse was
enforcedly silent." Miss Gary writes: "Alice is pursuing
her course heavenward, all goes on tranquilly and cheerfully.
She relies for the care of her spirit entirely on the Lord."
Very close on to Christmas, 1848, " there was a bright smile
on her still beautiful face, she looked at her husband, and,
turning her eyes toward heaven, she closed them forever."

Her boy John, who was fourteen, and her boy Joseph, who
was twelve, loved their mother tenderly. Their Aunt Lydia
Hobart was there to comfort them in their motherlessness.
Their father, visiting their chamber, found them both awake.
John said:

" Father, an angel put a good thought into my head, and I
got up and wrote it down; it is on the mantelpiece. It is
very badly written, for I can hardly see, but you can read it."
It was as follows:

Everything is for the best,

The Lord, He will provide.

Then lay thee down and take thy rest,

And in the Lord confide.

Joseph said, " Isn't it good. Father," and it comforted him.

Again the angel of the resurrection visited Mr. Worcester's
home, coming on a Sunday in April, 1850, for his daughter
Elizabeth, who was twenty-three. The tie was peculiarly
near between her and her mother, and she gradually loosened
her hold on this life. Miss Gary says:

" I do not know that any part of her existence has been
more beneficial to herself and others than during this decline,
her example a living lesson. Mr. Worcester has been the
most assiduous and kindest of parents in doing for her and
in anticipating her wants."

Miss Gary at the end of her Worcester sojourn, spent two
years in Mrs. Dorr's motherly home at 83 Pinckney Street,
and then was warmly welcomed for years at 101 Pinckney
Street at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Reed, and Arthur
and Helen Reed, and Mr. T. B. Hayward. She closed her
long life at ninety-three at the Gary family home at Chelsea
— in a spacious house whose roof was pierced with dormer

110 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

windows near the foot of Powder Horn Hill. Here, much
beloved, she was cared for by several of her fourteen brothers
and sisters. I have met her several times, and she impressed
me as a woman who appraised worldliness at its true value,
who cherished right thinking with discernment, and espoused
an unpopular cause without flinching.

The Rev. Thomas Worcester in his funeral address for
her, to be found in the New Jerusalem Magazine, vol. xli, p.
739, says of her who had anticipated him nearly a score of
years in the reception of our faith:

" It was not for me to make known to Miss Gary the
Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, nor to bring her
to the Lord as He is manifested in the internal sense of the
Word. Nor have I ever had any occasion to remind her of
her duty to study these things, and to endeavor to live accord-
ing to them; for whenever I met her she seemed to have just
come out of the Holy of Holies, and her face was still shining
with the light that had been illuminating her mind. And
whenever I undertook to explain a portion of the Word, or
to unfold any of the Holy Doctrines, it seemed to me that I
received from her more than I gave to her,"

We now return to the Rev. Thomas Worcester. In 1850,
he entered upon a second marriage. The bride was Mrs.
Lydia (Powell) Dean, who had identified herself with the
Boston Society, and who brought unwavering loyalty to the
Church's welfare. They went abroad for a year's absence,
traveling chiefly in Italian cities. During their visit in
Florence Mr. Worcester baptized Hiram Powers into the
New Church. He returned gladly to Boston and delighted
in the renewal of his beloved life's work.

Mr. Worcester had seen his Society grow under his hands.
His audiences were frequently a thousand. In 1818, the Bos-
ton Society was founded with twelve members; in 1828 there
were sixty-three; in 1838, one hundred and twenty-five; in
1848, four hundred and eleven; by the year 1867, he had
received eight hundred and seventy-six members into the So-
ciety {Worcester Biography, p. 126). The Rev. James Reed
was his exceedingly valuable ally, but, as he is living at this
date, he comes only incidentally into this narrative, pre-

Head of Christ by Hiram Pow(

Bust of Rev. Thomas W ore ester by Powers

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 111

cisely as the Rev. Julian K. Smyth comes only incidentally
into the story of the RoxlDury Society.

With a rich spiritual harvest, and with hosts of friends,
Mr. Worcester resigned his pastorate of the Boston Society
at seventy-two, and moved to Waltham. His newly erected
house, whose broad piazza, fifty feet long was introductory
to large hospitality, was, on May 8, 1871, flooded with sun-
shine when very many guests presented him a beautiful coupe,
with a speech by the Hon. Peleg W. Chandler. Mr. Worces-
ter's own horse was attached to the vehicle, and the long-loved
pastor and his wife were driven about the grounds. He gave
simple but eloquent thanks for the surprise gift, and received
very many individual expressions of esteem in return. There
was a kind of culminating happiness in the air which made
us all rejoice to be there. The guests represented the Massa-
chusetts Association.

Mr. Worcester lived seven years after this event, and his
home was a place of pilgrimage for his multitudinous friends.
As life declined, he used to say that the first thing he should
ask for in the other world would be a good theological
school. He felt his limitations with regard to the all-embrac-
ing truths of God's Holy Word, and he looked forward
eagerly to the larger opportunity hereafter. His last letter
to the Boston Society concludes as follows:

"There are many things which I should like to say in
this, which is probably my farewell letter. There are many
acknowledgments which I should be glad to make for
favors received, and many apologies and explanations which
I should like to make for my own faults and shortcomings:
but I should be tedious. I should be speaking of things
which for the present have passed away from their minds;
but they are all written in my book of life, and in the book
of the Boston Society. Our books are bound up together,
a page of one facing a page of the other. Whenever it will
be good for us, those books will be opened ; and perhaps that
time will soon come. If then and thenceforth any of us can
be useful to one another, I shall be happy and thankful."

Readers may care for personal impressions made upon the

112 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

present writer by the children of Rev. Thomas Worcester
whom she knew.

I. Miriam, the eldest, had, when I first saw her after her
marriage, a wild-rose complexion, the clear blue eye which
betokens intelligence and sincerity, much fragrance of spirit,
and, to an exceptional degree, discerning spiritual insight.
At twenty, she married Samuel F. Dike, a Brown University
alumnus, who became pastor of the Bath, Maine, New-Church
Society for half a century. He visited Palestine in 1880,
having prepared himself by study for twenty-five years.
When seventy-five, he circumnavigated the globe. He was
a power in the public schools in his home town, was for three
years president of our Theological School, and was appointed
professor of Church history. We knew and enjoyed him.
On my father's sudden departure from this life through
drowning, Mrs. Dike, having lost in like manner one among
her large flock of children, wrote us a sympathetic letter of
singular power, from which I quote:

"Try to avoid all thoughts about the closing scene here.
It is past and over with him, and as you desire to go on with
him, leave it behind as he has done. He had, without doubt,
the support he needed, but as you are not called upon to go
through it, the same support cannot be given to you.

"And now, my friends, try to rejoice v/ith him. His two
Ednahs, as he used to call you, must not desert him now."

II. Benjamin Worcester (1824-1911) married, at twenty-
three, Mary Clapp Ruggles, a maiden of twenty-one, having
a strong artistic sense, and a great motherly heart. If my
mother and I had become heir to a thousand brilliant honors,
the unworldly Mrs. Dike and the unworldly Mrs. Worcester
would not have been drawn to our house; but when sorrow
entered it, they came for the first time, in spite of large
families at home.

My direct personal acquaintance with Mr. Benjamin
Worcester is limited to one hour in a lifetime; but it is a
notable hour. Mrs. Waldo Cutler, my Waltham hostess for a
week, took me to his house on a Sunday evening. Lights in
the parlor diffused their rays through the windows, illumi-
nating the guests on the veranda, and on the grass under the

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 113

trees. Sacred music floated out on the quiet air. Hymns
were excluded from his Sunday services (although he
voluntarily admitted them a little before his death) ; but
the young people might sing these human stanzas in his house,
— he, in the meantime, betaking himself to his study.

In spite of my protest, Mrs. Cutler sent word to the
invisible head of the house regarding my presence. He
came — hence the hour's interview. He talked of Newman
Smyth's new book which was stirring the religious world. He
discoursed on the Children's Crusade in the thirteenth cen-
tury. It has been thought "that traveling boy preachers
under the orders of Pope Innocent HI stirred up this tre-
mendous uprising which he vainly tried to control."
Children — 20,000 perhaps — accompanied by fanatical
adults, started from Flanders in the year 1212 to cross the
Alps to the port of Marseilles. Half of them sailed for
Jerusalem, where they declared Jesus was waiting for them
and calling them. Tragedy engulfed them, and they died or
were captured on the way — an instance of strange and
wild emotion.

Mr. Worcester unfolded this new story to my ignorant and
wondering mind; and as he was quite as good a listener as
talker, I unfolded to him the story of his two new teachers
just arrived — the Misses Avis and Julia Tallman — who had
educated themselves in art, music, and several modem
languages during their five years abroad. In Germany they
were coached in the Scandinavian languages by Hjalmer
Hjorth Boyeson (afterwards professor in Columbia) whom
they had known in the Urbana University. They were ladies
of amenity in manner, and of rare gifts. Mr. Worcester
asked with curious interest of the exact impression produced
on my mind by the ritual and ceremonials of the Roman
Catholic, Greek, Jewish, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches
in Europe.

In spite of great reserve, Benjamin Worcester knew how to
touch the hearts of the schoolgirls with fatherly inspiration
for good; and to one, who was slowly approaching "the
valley of the shadow," he wrote a sustaining letter every day.
In 1900, after we came out from the Church obsequies of

114 SKETCPIES OF THE NEW CHURCH

his brother John, we saw him standing outside with his face
toward an angle in the wall. Under God he must fight out
his battles alone.

Mr. Worcester enjoyed his kinsman, the Rev. Elwood
Worcester, Rector of Emmanuel Church, and Founder of the
so-called " Emmanuel Movement." Dean C. Worcester,
formerly a United States Philippine Commissioner, was a
kinsman a bit more remote.

III. Catharine Worcester had a certain loveliness of
spirit like her mother. On Christmas Eve, 1851, she married
Thomas Thacher; and they, with a flock of precious children,
became for some years parishioners in New York of the Rev.
Abiel Silver. She called our house her second home.

IV. John Worcester needs no introduction. The benefi-
cent aspect of his life was shown in his gratuitous medical
ministrations to humble folk near his Intervale summer home,
he having had direct and careful training in anatomy and
physiology. I discovered his gentleness of expression as a
critic, when he used to "venture to suggest" changes in my
Sunday School lesson notes 1881-83 under his supervision.

In 1857 Mr. Worcester married Miss Elizabeth Callender
Pomeroy of Cambridge. She had paid her public vows in
New-Church membership just before her betrothal, he having
waited, his aunt said, for that step, that she might not be
unduly influenced by him ; he cared for a fine degree of har-
mony in their religion. She had a mobile face lighted by
large expressive dark eyes, quick intelligence, a highly re-
sponsive nature, a keen sense of humor capable of genial
satire, much vivacity, and a great capacity for devotion to
home and Church. She was a blessing to the Newtonville So-
ciety during the thirty-one years of married life permitted her
in this world before her transition to another. Her husband
had begun his active work in the ministry at twenty-one
years of age, before his marriage, and Newtonville was his
onlv pastorate.

The summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Worcester was at
Intervale, New Hampshire, with a charming meadow, dotted
with trees in the foreground, and the noble Presidential
ranffe of the White Mountains in the distance. In 1878 I

Head from statue of
'■ The Greek Slave " by
Powers, in Corcoran Art Gallery,
W ashinsrton. D.C.

" Faith "

hv Hiram Pollers

Model by Powers

of the hand of his little child

Hiram Powers
of Florence

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 115

spent a month near them, and observed Mr. Worcester's
method of training his children. Long college vacations were
not to be squandered in mere personal pleasure and recre-
ation. His two sons had already spent two summers in
cutting, for the benefit of amateur pedestrians, an easy if
circuitous footpath up Moat Mountain which lifts its head
3,100 feet toward the sky. He himself had just extended an
invitation to his fellow members of the Appalachian Club
to meet in his Study; and his sons had just completed a foot-
bridge directly across the Saco which shortened the climb up
Moat by four miles. This, their devoted admirer, Rev.
Theodore Wright, helped them to accomplish. None pro-
fessed much knowledge of civil engineering, but the planks,
resting on wooden horses as piers, and fastened to the shore
— a grave problem — were efficacious for good. The sup-
ports were reinforced by stones planted around them to resist
the current; and a handrail was even added to reassure the
timid. The whole structure was packed away each autumn
for the ensuing spring.

One day during the Club sessions, forty of us climbed the
easy two-mile footpath up Mt. Willard from Crawford Notch.
At the summit, Mr. Worcester characteristically seated him-
self on a projecting ledge, and filled his time by sketching
various peaks. In 1882 he and his elder son, William,
ascended many and many a height in Palestine, gathering
flowers and inspiration. His little book on this journey gives
a glimpse of humor. Ten mules and horses, also two donkeys,
were required for their tenting life from Beersheba to Damas-
cus. He says (pp. 4 and 5) :

" We did not get an early start, as it was the first time of
packing the mules, and there was the usual struggle between
the chief muleteer and the dragoman as to the number of
mules required. The contest had the curious conclusion of
paying for half a mule more than was needed, and not taking
the half mule. The dragoman said that usually they had to
pay for a whole mule and not take him, and he considered
that our muleteer was very easy and good natured." His book
shows his love of flowers and his surprise and delight at the
unexpected beauty of the land for its own sake. He antici-

116 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

pated much from its association with the Lord's life. Like
most clergymen, he especially loved the Sea of Galilee region,
the scene of much Divine teaching:

" I shall never bring my journey into my sermons," he
once said to me, "but they will be better for what I have
seen." Seemingly, he did not care to see Europe, or to visit
the British Conference; his interest was centered in the land
his Lord had trodden; he wished to better his own service for
His sake. I once said to him:

" Mr. Worcester, one occasionally meets persons who deny
the historic Christ; they are Bishop Berkeleian New-Church-
men, who think that the Gospel story is wholly spiritual, and
exists only in the mind. Now, when these persons go to the
other world, will it be necessary to enlighten them? He had
physical presence here, will they discover it? "

" Why," he replied, after a brief silence, " all the angels
know it."

Soon after 1882, I witnessed the instructive nature of a
Church tea party at his Newtonville home. He read a diary
recently written by Nanny, the daughter of Gen. Charles
Pomeroy Stone, an American officer serving at Alexandria
during the period which included its bombardment by the
British. A map of Egypt, with explanatory comments made
a highly dramatic evening. How well I recall the diary:
the General's daughter describes herself as in an atmosphere
surcharged with danger, where the display of an easy care-
less courage was necessary. The shades were drawn up in
the windows of the brilliantly lighted drawing-room. Just
without, spies were probably hidden in the trees; but fortu-
nately the inmates commanded more than one language, and
an answer was always given in a different tongue from the
question, in order to throw the treacherous listeners off the
track. That evening's enjoyment gave an impetus to our
reading on the subject. Subsequently, we studied Roosevelt's
point of view in his Alexandria address; the native point of
view from the Nationalists ; the artistic point of view regard-
ing the British occupation and regulation of the Nile through
Pierre Loti's charming little plea for the submerged temples
in his La Mort de Philae.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 117

Mr. John Worcester's Sunday services on his own grounds
at Intervale, were extremely impressive: the open windows,
the leafy landscape, the wood fire, the bright rug, the hush
of the devotional atmosphere, and his abiding companion-
ship with the Holy Scriptures.

" If there is any good in me," he once said, " I owe it
chiefly to hearing Bible stories from Miss Gary's lips every
day when I was a child."

Mr. Worcester, on his last Christmas day, wrote as follows:

"The other night I dreamed I died. It was the most
natural possible thing to do, and, when I waked up, there

was L [his wife] watching me all these twelve years.

It was a comforting little dream." *

V. Joseph Worcester I first saw when the Silver family,
after a thousand-mile carriage drive from Michigan to Boston,
were guests of Rev. Thomas Worcester, who was very proud
of his boys. "Listen, Mr. Silver," he said, drawing him from
the study to the stair-balustrade, " John and Joseph are talk-
ing Latin together down stairs." After Joseph's Harvard
training in science, his California trip around Cape Horn, and
his ordination, we saw him again when our family were guests
of his father in a temporary home at the old Sanderson house
in Worcester Lane, Waltham. This spacious residence, more
than two hundred years old, is now occupied by the Rev.
Thomas Worcester's great-granddaughter, Mrs. Barbara
Worcester Porter, wife of Dr. Charles I. Porter. In 1793
Captain John Clark successfully wooed and won the Sander-
son maiden Lydia in this house, and they added a big flock
of New-Church sons and daughters to the Boston Society
during their fifty-seven years of married life.

Joseph Worcester, during our Waltham visit in 1867,
showed his early training: when his father said, " Joseph, shut
that door," the young man of thirty-one obeyed with instant
alacrity — no procrastinating, dilatory manner. Evidently,
Thomas Worcester and Abiel Silver agreed with King David
regarding children: "As soon as they hear, they shall be
obedient to me." Joseph entertained us with the wonders of

* From a memorial sketch added to the Rev. John Worcester's book A Promise
of Peace, 196 pp., 1900.

118 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

the Yosemite, and soon after returned to the Pacific Coast
for a residence of nearly fifty years.

Mr. John Worcester's summer home was on high ground
overlooking the Intervale meadow majestically dominated by
great hills; Mr. Benjamin Worcester's summer home looked
down on Straitsmouth harbor and lighthouse; Mr. Joseph
Worcester's home all the year round was on Russian Hill in
San Francisco commanding an extraordinary view. I saw the
latter person for the last time in 1901. The western journey
stirs one to the depths, and I beg the reader's leave to describe
one impression gained on the way, aroused by a tumultuous
stream west of Banff, Alberta Territory, in Canada.

This is the Wapta or Kicking Horse River, so named by the
Indians which in its rapid descent over a terribly obstructing
bed, prances, rears, foams, tumbles back over itself, plunges
forward in cascades, presents no end of striking effects of
spray, and is so irregular in its action that if you watch the
water near the shore you cannot always tell its direction, for
it lapses into back eddies, and circles around into bewildering
whirlpools, leaving the observer in a wonderment.

It is like a tumultuous human life, fretted by obstacles,
forced back upon itself in seeming despair, driven to renewed
energy by its temporary defeats, all its latent combativeness
aroused by innumerable difficulties. Long ago, near the
mountain source of its childhood's innocence, it passed the
period of mere youthful gaiety, childish caprice, and merry
playfulness; it is now in live earnest; the strain and stress
of life are upon it. But the sunshine of heaven seems to
exist only to bring out its occasional beauties in rainbow
tint; a divine force vivified by the attracting power of the
Lord's love is drawing it on. It makes progress, and is not
hopelessly engulfed in the passions and tumults of life.
Some day this human soul will reach the sea of eternity,
humble in its self-mastery, strong from obstacles overcome,
deep with the wisdom of experience, calm enough to image
the beauties of the heavens above it, and to carry them in its
very heart.

Mr. Worcester in San Francisco reminds us of St. Chrys-
ostom in Constantinople: his bachelor domestic economy

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 119

was severely simple, but not verging on asceticism like that
of the Greek Father; he touched all sorts and conditions of
men quite equally with the Eastern saint; he labored for
prison reform, making the welfare of discharged men a
special object of his life; he won over orphan boys by his
warm-hearted shepherding, establishing for them a perma-
nent home, The Rock, on a high ledge overlooking the hills.
The Rev. Charles R. Brown, now Dean of the Yale Divinity
School, filled for many years a Congregational pulpit in San
Francisco. He preached a sermon a few years since in the
Old South Church, Boston, in which he emphasized the power
of silent influence in character. He had known a noted
example: "his name is the Rev. Joseph Worcester, a Sweden-
borgian minister." In a casual interview later, Dean Brown
emphasized the same to me. A lady, for ten years resident
in San Francisco, tells me that the Chief Justice of the State
Supreme Court — a later arrival than Mr. Worcester — was
wont to consult him on the law; painters prized his dis-
criminating valuation of their canvases; the University of
California adopted his architectural suggestions in its designs;
social exclusives appreciated his faultless manners. The
Rev. Frank Sewall on a visit to San Francisco asked Mr.
Worcester if he knew the street car conductor greeting him
with lifted cap:

" 0, yes! they all know me, and we are very good friends.
It is surprising how many come to me to get married. And
then, in due time, they bring their little ones to be baptized! "
The Rev. Thomas French tells us that the Rev. Willis G.
White, pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Santa Rosa,
had his three children baptized by Mr. Worcester in the
latter's church. The Rev. Frank Sewall comments on the
comradeship between Mr. Worcester and his own brother,
Arthur Sewall, "a man of practical affairs not especially
interested in topics doctrinal or cultural," who would fall
asleep at times before the Worcester fireplace with its "blaz-
ing log or glowing bed of ashes," and w^ake to find his host sit-
ting quite patiently, amused at the interruption, and ready to
take up the arrested narrative where he left it. Another
notable friendship was that between Mr. Worcester and Mr.

120 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Howard M. Ticknor, a man of the world, caustic critic, and
sharp analyst, knowing dramatic literature as few men knew
it, familiar with foreign human nature through ten years'
residence abroad: the two men rich in artistic and other
culture, but enjoying each other for the deeper things which
each recognized, and for mutual exchange of that which each
lacked.

A California lady took us to Mr. Joseph Worcester's home,
and we were ushered into a long low room, with large plate
glass windows for the glorious outlook, hard wood floor
with rugs, open book shelves, numerous pictures, often gifts
from artists — William Keith, Mrs. Richardson, and others.
We plunged, without preliminary skirmishing, into topics
worth while. Professor Joseph LeConte had just died in the
Yosemite Valley, his favorite oak in the University of Cali-
fornia campus was hung with crape, the Faculty were pro-
nouncing eulogies. I spoke of his Avorks on Evolution know-
ing that the two men were excellent friends.

"Yes," Mr. Worcester had said to him, "you start out
with the self-evident axiom that no effect can be greater than
its cause, and you violate it at every step of your reasoning
when you constantly deduce higher forms from lower."

" But," replied LeConte, " there are many causes, not one
for each new form of life."

"Yes," returned Mr. Worcester, " but does an aggregation
of inferior causes equal the superior effect? "

Mr. Worcester told me that on another occasion he opened
up the subject again:

"Professor LeConte, what do you believe to be the one
great Cause back of all others? "

"I believe that it is the love of God; but I cannot teach
that to my scientific companions."

" For that reason, Professor, your science is inadequate
and inconclusive."

Mr. Worcester further commented to me on the excellencies
of Greek philosophy though he admitted some vital defects
in Plato's Republic, and he pointed out the need of a clear
knowledge of Discrete Degrees in Professor William James's
psychology; we commented on the loyalty of Professor Louis

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 121

Agassiz in clinging to higher truth at any cost, even if lower
phenomena seemed to contradict it. Mr. Worcester said that
LeConte accepted the philosophy of Swedenborg regarding
matter rather than that of Bishop Berkeley.

For New-Church visitors, the chief building in San Fran-
cisco is the House of Worship about thirty by fifty feet
on the corner of Lyon andWashington Streets erected in 1895
under Mr. Worcester. Here, as we saw it, you will find no
ushers, an invisible hospitality bidding you be seated; no
offertory plate; but a little iron box in a shadowy comer
enables you, if you find it, to deposit your offering unknown
except to your recording angel; no sexton, since parishioners,
opulent or otherwise, consider it a privilege to eliminate the
intrusive dust; no finance committee, or church fairs, or
sewing circles. Do the ravens come with offerings as at the
brook Cherith? Even the building fund grew by spontaneity.
We enjoyed the little low- roofed structure of alleged
Italian design, but seemingly allied to Spanish Mission
architecture, in its simplicity, restfulness, and quiet beauty.
It is a building of perfect unworldiness set down in a modern,
aggressive, virile city. It is not labeled with a sign, and has
no advertising, except that the Easter Sunday newspaper —
of which I have seen a copy — used to devote illustrated
pages to flamboyant praise in a way to invade the domain
of reserve in which its tranquil-spirited pastor loved to dwell.
Nature gives a note of gladness to the spot. The concrete
wall more than six feet high shuts off the Church from the
street, and is decorated with gay pink blossoms and ivy
geraniums which run riot and laugh in the sunshine. At
the top of the steps from the street you are ushered into a
shaded vestibule which opens into the church garden. Turn-
ing sharply to the right, you follow the church wall to the
entrance near the rear; but you pause to speak to Mr.
Worcester who is standing under the clear sky on this Sunday
morning, July 21, 1901. He draws your attention to the
rare trees, curious shrubs, and circular shallow stone pool
set in the velvety lawn which furnishes water to lively song-
sters, and elicits their warbling thanks in return. The same
lovely solicitude for birds is repeated within:

122 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

"High up in the wall, over the chancel, is a gem of a
window, small and round, set like a jewel out of reach. Its
theme is a garden. Lavender iris grows at the base of a
shallow stone bowl, filled to the brim with water. A branch
of flowering apple tree is reflected in the sheet of silver, and,
on the edge of the pool, balances a bird."

The very laborers " worked overtime on the building from
sheer love of the church; and when a swallow built a nest
under the eaves, they took innumerable pains not to disturb
her, and spread a feast of crumbs from their luncheon
baskets." *

Spanish tiles cover the roof; the walls are of concrete and
hardburned brick, wainscoted inside with Oregon pine. At
the rear, just as you enter, is a generous brick fireplace, and
even in midsummer the bit of blaze and the fragrant odor
are agreeable; but the crosses that surmount the andirons
remind us that life has its Calvary. The shadow on our soul
is lifted, however, as we see the little glowing picture in
stained glass on our right — St. Christopher outlined against
water and sky, bearing the Holy Child luminous with spirit-
ual glory. Near by is a very narrow window brought from
Westminster Abbey; once it transmitted light onto illustrious
tombs; now it looks in on seventy-five living worshipers. The
remaining windows are plain and leaded, but idealized by
encircling roses which clamber up in worshipful fashion
from the garden.

Down the other side of the church, opposite the windows,
" are four large mural landscapes, long and narrow and rich
in tone, painted by William Keith, the dean of California
landscape painters, and by far the most talented, and given
by him out of love for this charming church. The themes
are the seasons. . . . Instead of showing the conventional
spring, summer, autumn and winter, they are devoted to the
early and late rains, and to the two seasons of harvest. This
story of the western seasons tells the gradual change of the
hills from brown to green, to brown again, and describes

* All quotations not otherwise credited are from "A Sermon in Church Build-
ing " by Mabel Clare Craft in The House Beautiful for February, 1901, pub-
lished in Chicago.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 123

vividly the luscious colors of the meadows, and the deep
shadows of the oaks."

If my eastern readers cannot see the Worcester church
paintings they will be rewarded by a visit to the Public
Library at Maiden, Mass., where may be enjoyed a charac-
teristic picture by this William Keith (1839-1911) who was
born in Aberdeen, but was early Americanized. He shows
us an autumn sunrise with translucent clouds irradiated by
the orb's rays; below are big bronze oaks dominating the
landscape, and a pond with standing cattle; the whole per-
vaded with the spirit of tranquillity.

Returning to the Worcester Church, we find that the cus-
tomary pews are supplanted by hand-wrought chairs of Mis-
sion furniture design — " the frames of maple, and the seats
of California tules, beautifully braided by hand." Beneath
the worshipers' feet are Japanese woven grass-mats on a
floor of native wood without polish. The open coffered roof
is supported by six pair of madrona tree-trunks with the native
bark still on, which extend from a point considerably below
the eaves upward to the ridgepole. Mr. Worcester selected
them in the Sierras and the young woodsman-owner became
himself consecrated in the cutting, and declared "that no
hands but his had touched them, that he could not bear to
think of their being handled as freight, and he begged to
deliver them in person." Down the long mountain road he
came, his horses musical with sleigh-bells; the blacksmith
who served them in a contingency declined remuneration
when he learned the purpose of the trees.

The rural decorations of the church were as unusual as
everything else: sometimes stalks of Indian com stood
grouped in comers, or glossy oak branches, or brown Eucalyp-
tus surrounded the reading-desk, the latter adorned with an
artichoke flower, or a curious fungus growth out of which
living green was springing. Spanish moss sometimes de-
pended from the roof. In 1901 a nature loving Club of
non-New-Church persons spent their Saturdays in searching
the woods for treasures, and begged to bring their Dryad
offerings to the altar.

The church-service was very simple. Mr. Worcester

124 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

stepped down from his low platform to join the group of
singers round the portable organ. The music was all chant-
ing, the Lord's prayer was the only petition, as prescribed
in the early Book of Worship issued for the Boston Society
long before, and still in use by the conservative Mr. Worcester.
He mourned the wear and tear of the books with no hope of
replenishment; but I, on my return, forwarded to him as a
gift from former owners fifty copies discovered here. In
the pulpit, Mr. Worcester's voice was low, his eyes on his
manuscript, his delivery without gesture; but his message
was spiritual and full of an indefinable power. He declined
during his lifetime the publication of a single one of his
sermons, but permitted to appear his address of 1908 as
Phi Beta Kappa member of the Leland Stanford University.
His topic, The Dual Nature of All Things, touches on
marriage. He says:

" Of the movements of the day disturbing the sanctions of
the past none affects us more profoundly than that which
questions the relation to each other of man and woman.

" With the age of authority of man over man, in w^hich one
must command and the other obey, the relation was simple.
Wliat we see now is almost equally simple — in woman's
revolt against man's authority, and claim of absolute equality
in all things. But, about the ideal relation or essential
equality, we seem to know nothing except that it is not of
authority, and certainly not of antagonism. The best in-
tentioned men and women are painfully questioning in the
matter; yet must there be principles to guide us, — to be
found with patient application, and mutual conference and
deference. . . .

" We do not care to dwell upon the first and passing phases
of the struggle, but will speak briefly of two only, upon which
there will be no controversy. Both men and women deplore
the advent of the woman self-assertive, all-claiming; we have,
in kindness, shut our eyes to her, believing that it was only
a passing phase, knowing that it was a travesty on true
womanliness. It may have been attended by a poor sub-
servient phase of manhood — willing to let its work be done,
but it certainly has been followed by an exaggerated mascu-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 125

Unity which is quite as offensive as the travestied femininity,
and equally wide of the mark. We have come pretty near
learning that woman is not improved by taking on the clothes
or manners of the man: man did not need the flattery, — he
was conceited enough before. . . .

" If only it might be understood that he — the man, not the
brute — never quite comprehends why or how woman can
love him; that his chivalry always has that modest wonder
at the bottom of it! He sees these things dimly, and, in the
same way, he knows that for his temptations — the conceit,
the brutality which peculiarly are his — there is no human
influence comparable with that of the womanly woman; and
he regards with something of dismay her preference over this
of that which seems to him so much poorer. He feels, though
he cannot explain, that she makes a mistake well-nigh disas-
trous in imagining that his reluctance to seeing her enter the
new fields of activity is grudging selfishness. But he admits
that she also may speak, or find some one to speak for her,
and tell us how she is misunderstood. By such exchange
of explanation, may we not arrive at the truth, or get on a
step or two toward it? "

Mr. Worcester further says that marriage becomes the
most ensnaring means of self-love if the man loves the woman
because of her love for him, and the woman loves the man be-
cause of his love for her. He also says that the union becomes
more perfect in proportion to the diff'erentiation between
them — the woman growing more distinctly womanly, the
man becoming more distinctively manly. They care for the
same things, but they care for them diff"erently. And he ends
by pointing our attention to the Archetypal Oneness of the
Lord's Love and Wisdom as a prototype of human marriage.

All I have to say of much of the above quotation is that
it is a phase of Worcester spirituality distinctively unlike
that of any one else in the whole New Church. The following
incident is in the same line:

Mr. Joseph Worcester told me that one of his personal
friends, a railroad official, had begged to present him with
a round-trip pass enabling him to visit his brothers in Massa-
chusetts once more.

126 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

" I thought the matter over for twenty-four hours," he
said, " and I decided to decline the offer. It seemed to me
entirely unnecessary that I should see my brothers. We love
each other, we know that we love each other, and we are very
near each other in spirit. I wrote Benjamin and John of my
decision, and they wholly agreed with me."

Swedenborg says: " Nor does their distance from each other
on earth alter the case: though persons may live here many
thousands of miles asunder, still they may be together. . . ."
(A. C. 1277).

At the obsequies for Mr. Worcester in 1913, Professor S.
S. Seward "^ tells us that the chapel was " beautiful with
branches of cone-bearing fir, pine, and juniper; there were
boughs of oak and branches of flowering barberry, but no cut
flowers" ; there was reading from a manuscript written by Mr.
Worcester in anticipation of these simple services which were
repeated to the overflow of people in the garden; and thither
the " Rock " boys, after the prayer, bore their spiritual foster-
father's house of clay. But it was no longer tenanted; he
had gone in the company of attendant celestial angels of the
resurrection to the spiritual home of his brothers Benjamin
and John.

We will now descend to earth in our narrative, and trace
six New-Church generations in direct lineal descent:

i. Capt. John Clark married in 1793 Lydia Sanderson.

ii. Alice Clark married in 1821 Thomas Worcester.

iii. Benjamin Worcester married in 1847 Mary C. Rug-
gles.

iv. Alice Worcester married in 1870 Lewis Tafel Bum-
ham.

v. Mary Burnham married in 1897 George Bumham
Beaman.

vi. The offspring of George and Mary are great-great-
great-grandchildren of Capt. John Clark who was born in
1767.

Again we trace a line:

* The Worcester and Sewall and Seward quotations are from the New-Church
Messenger for September 24, 1913; that of Mr. French from the Messenger of
January 7, 1914.

Interior Second New Jerusalem Church, corner Lyons and
Washington Streets, San Francisco. Rev. Joseph Worcester

^yt^yir^^^^i^i^ >uo.v.^ Av^^-t^

^^-^--^ ^:r-X-^ .^^^T^.^"<

^^^'VV^^iJ^^^

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 127

i. Capt. John Clark married Lydia Sanderson,
ii. Alice Clark married Thomas Worcester.

iii. Miriam Worcester married in 1842 Samuel Fuller
Dike.

iv. Helen Dike married in 1874 Albert Edward Hooper.
V. Catharine Reed Hooper married in 1905 Walter Bur-
gess Warren.

vi. The little Warrens of Portland, Oregon, are the sixth
New-Church generation.

Several other lines of at least five successive generations
of our faith can be drawn through Thomas Worcester's
children, Miriam, Catharine and John, all of which shows the
strong Worcester loyalty to the Church of the New Jerusalem.

Rev. William L. Worcester, General Pastor of the Massa-
chusetts Association, and President of the Cambridge New
Church Theological School, continues to hold the ministerial
office represented by his father and grandfather, and he hands
on the family torch of spiritual truth lighted by Rev. Thomas
Worcester, Founder of the Boston Society of the New
Jerusalem.

VIII

ABIEL SILVER AND THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE

A HUNDRED old family letters stretching back nearly a
century and recently rescued from an attic on the Mississippi;
a faded sheaf of state documents bearing presidential and
other public signatures; but above all, decades of sympa-
thetic and hallowed companionship between my father and
myself, together with the sharing of parochial privileges:
these furnish the chief material for this chapter.

I. BOYHOOD

I long
To hear the story of your life, which must
Take the ear strangely.

— The Tempest, A.D. 1611.

Abiel's father, John Silver, gained your favor out of hand
by his winning personality. Broad in spirit and flexible of
temperament, he had none of the Puritan rigidity of his day.
Analytical of mind, he questioned the creeds, but was reverent
toward God, and scrupulous toward the neighbor. Although
living all his life in the country, a city adjective best describes
his manners, which, characterized by ease, were essentially
urbane. About 1770 he married Mary Buell, a sweet-spirited,
gentle young girl who displayed none of the ambition for the
ballot which characterized her distinguished contemporary,
Mrs. John Adams, although, like her, she had a warm
motherly heart.

Both my grandparents in their old age migrated westward,
and their aspect remains clearly defined in my childhood's
memory: his ruddy face crowned with white hair, his attitude
toward children most winning; and I can see her kindly face
framed in the broad frill of her white cap. Their home with
their youngest daughter overlooked a garden gay with Bounc-
ing Bets, phlox, and Sweet Williams over which drooped the
graceful plumes of the princess' feather. Not infrequently

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 129

she would steal away from the family group, seclude herself
in the " best room " near the vine-encircled window, and open
the great family Bible, much of which she could repeat from
memory.

After the manner of the olden times, my grandparents
bestowed Scriptural names upon several of their children:
that of the eldest son brings to mind the third Hebrew
patriarch; that of the second son recalls the beloved disciple;
that of the third son reminds one of the good king of Judah
in whose reign the Book of the Law was recovered ; the name
of the fourth son sends one's thoughts back to the prophet of
lamentation; the fifth son bore the name of King Saul's
grandfather; but the youngest son was named for the famous
American kite-flying philosopher, whose widely equipped
mind my grandfather greatly admired. The elder daughter
in the Silver household bore the name of a certain saint sacred
in legendary art whom Raphael has depicted with palm branch
in hand, standing serenely upon the subjugated dragon; and
upon grandfather's younger daughter was bestowed the name
of the glorious martyr-maid of mediaeval France.

Abiel, grandfather Silver's fifth son and the subject of this
sketch, opened his grey eyes on the world April the third,
1797, at Hopkinton, near Concord, New Hampshire. George
Washington had not yet relinquished the helm of state after
nearly eight highly successful years in the presidential chair.
The lad Abiel grew up with a great hunger for knowledge,
and a strong aptitude for quickly assimilating it, and making
it a part of the texture of his mind.

II A BIG EVENT

My great compensation-day which it was worth while being born for.
— Robert Browning's comment on
the day when he first met Elizabeth
Barrett.

Romance was written large in my father's life. While still
in infantile frocks he paid his first visit to the newly-arrived
maiden, Ednah Hastings, to whom he was to prove a brave
knight, tender and true to the last. Decanters, after the
manner of the day, were on the sideboard ; and the two houses,

130 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

in unconscious prophecy through their spirit of fun, bade him
sip a little wine to the health of his little wife. The damsel
had first opened her blue eyes on the world at Hopkinton
on May the thirtieth, 1798; and her precocious lover might
say in the words of the poem by Rev. Frederick Palmer of
Cambridge over an event of similar import to him, that, on
that night

The half of myself was born.

One of Ednah's early misdemeanors shall be recorded.
When quite too young to pronounce her own name she was
observed one day diligently pulling up tiny garden plants,
and repeating over and over to herself:

"Naughty, naughty, Nanna mustn't do that, No, No,
naughty, naughty! "

An eye-witness has described to me a pretty contrasting
scene in the Hastings orchard when a group of little sisters

Knit hands and beat the ground
In a glad fantastic round.

As they encircled a fragrant cherry tree I wonder if they
knew that they were singing the glad-hearted words of Shakes-
peare's Ariel:

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom.s that hang on the bough.

The little Hastingses multiplied until there were eight tall
and stately maidens, whose parents, Moses and Miriam Tyler
Hastings, were brave of heart, firm of nerve, loyal to duty.

Abiel and Ednah, as yet unpledged lovers, parsed together
out of Young's Night Thoughts, admired the rhythmic prose
of Rasselas, envied Addison his English, and analyzed Pope's
Essay on Man. They wondered over the authorship of the
charming new novel, Waverley, and laughed over Irving's
Knickerbocker, Cowper's Diverting History of John Gilpin,
and the current rhyme beginning:

A wife should be like echo true,

Nor speak but when she's spoken to;

But not like echo e'er be heard

Contending for the final word. . '

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 131

These young people frequented "spelling-down" parties
where two lines of contestants faced each other and the
dictionary was the umpire, each member forfeiting his place
at his first misspelled word. Poor spellers went down like
ninepins, but the early epistles of my parents were triumphs
in orthography, and attest their success. Sleighing was a
favorite diversion, and Poe has set the music of the bells to
the rhythmic words of genius:

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

What gifts did the early nineteenth century lad give to his
lassie? My only answer lies in a faded bit of paper which
has been yellowing for a century, on which is written a mathe-
matical problem "given by Abiel to Ednah to solve." It
reads after this wise:

" A gentleman was making his address in a lady's family
who had live daughters; she told them their father had made
a will which imported that the first four of the Girls' fortunes
were together to make £65,000; the last four £66,000, the
last three with the first £60,000, the first three with the last
£56,000, and the first two with the last two £64,000; which
if he could tell what each one was to have, as he appeared to
have a partiality for Harriet, the third daughter, he should
be welcome to her. Pray what was Miss Harriet's fortune?

£10,000. Ans."

Riding on horseback was a favorite pastime in the olden
times, and my mother was a fearless and even daring eques-
trienne, sometimes mounting an unwilling animal which had
never had a woman on its back. One day she rode out on a
gay young creature and stopped at a door to deliver a message.

132 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

An old woman came out, her face framed in an immense cap
frill which shook with agitation as the eyes, keen, kindly, but
apprehensive, peered over the spectacles at the caller. She
spoke slowly, punctuating each word:

" Miss Hastings, don't you ride that wild horse; good folks
are scarce, and bad ones ain't fit to die! "

The New England Primer had turned the merry-hearted
Abiel and Ednah, while little children, to the consideration
of grave matters. They evidently studied the Boston edition
of 1777, printed by Edward Draper in Newbury Street and
sold by John Boyle in Marlborough Street, a copy of which
lies before me. It is three by four and a half inches in size,
bound in blue paper over stiff boards with a leather back.
Its thickness is only a quarter of an inch, but its eighty pages
include the Shorter Catechism, John Cotton's Spiritual Milk
for Babes, and A Dialogue between Christ, Youth and the
Devil. Its varied themes delighted the theologian, gave as-
surance to the elect, terrified the impenitent, stirred the leth-
argic, stiffened the wavering, and aroused awe in the devout.
The Cradle Hymn by Watts sang its Avay through my mother's
sweet voice into my heart. She needed to blue-pencil only one
verse. But the following infantile rhymes made little children
old before their time :

I in the burying place may see

Graves shorter there than I,
From death's arrest no age is free,

Young children too must die.

My God, may such an awful sight

Awakening be to me!
Oh! that by early grace I might

For death prepared be.

Puritanism engraved its message deep on the memory; and
Abiel and Ednah within my remembrance could recite the
following from the New England Primer:

VERSES FOR CHILDREN

Though I am young, a little one,

H I can speak and go alone,

Then I must learn to know the Lord,

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 133

And learn to read his holy word.

'Tis time to seek to God and pray

For what I want for every day :

I have a precious soul to save,

And I a mortal body have,

Tho' I am young yet I may die

And hasten to eternity :

There is a dreadful fiery hell,

Where wicked ones must always dwell:

There is a heaven full of joy,

Where godly ones must always stay:

To one of these my soul must fly,

As in a moment when I die:

When God that made me, calls me home,

I must not stay, I must be gone.

He gave me life, and gives me breath.

And he can save my soul from death.

He gives me bread and milk and meat

And all I have that's good to eat.

When I am sick, he, if he please.

Can make me well and give me ease:

He gives me sleep and quiet rest,

Wliereby my body is refreshed.

The Lord is good and kind to me,

And very thankful I must be.

I must obey and love and fear him.

By faith in Christ I must draw near him.

I must not sin as others do.

Lest I lie down in sorrow too:

For God is angry every day.

With wicked ones who go astray,

All sinful words I must restrain:

I must not take God's name in vain.

I must not work, I must not play,

Upon God's holy sabbath day.

And if my parents speak the word,

I must obey them in the Lord.

Nor steal, nor lie, nor spend my days

In idle tales and foolish plays,

I must obey the Lord's commands.

Do something with my little hands:

Remember my Creator now.

In youth while time will it allow.

In this Primer famous couplets are accompanied by crude,
forceful dramatic woodcuts, two of which fill a square inch.

134 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

The trunk of a fruit tree is encircled by the beguiling serpent
to emphasize the dogma:

In Adam's Fall
We sinned all.

A lad escaping from the Tempter, depicted with the tra-
ditional terrible claws, forked tail and devouring jaws, tells
us pictorially of moral triumph; and is accompanied by this

couplet :

Young Timothy
Learnt sin to fly.

The effigy of a king crowned and coffined recalls our in-
evitable fate:

Xerxes did die,
And so must I.

A skeleton steals suddenly upon a group of convivial
youths around a table bringing judgment vnth him:

While youth do chear
Death may be near.

Puritan illustrations deal with the issues of life and death
for the soul, but grim humor sometimes creeps in surrepti-
tiously and lights up the tragedy.

A great educational promotion to Phillips Academy at
Exeter, New Hampshire, came to Abiel Silver in 1811. Just
one hundred years later, I visited the institution under the
guidance of a courteous undergraduate proud of its trophies
won in athletic contests, especially those snatched from the
great rival, Phillips Andover. Why this absorbing devotion?

The town of Exeter inhaled enthusiasm for outdoor sports
with its first breath of life in 1683 through its founder, the
Rev. John Wheelwright. His "athletic vigor and pluck"
were shown in his contests at Cambridge, England, with his
fellow collegian, the future famous Oliver Cromwell, who
is recorded as saying, " That he was more afraid of meeting
Wheelwright at football than he had been since of meeting
an army in the field, for he was infallibly sure of being
tripped up by him."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 135

At Exeter today, instead of quoit-pitching and other sim-
ple games of a century ago, we see golf courses, baseball
diamonds, football fields, straight-aways, modern boat houses,
tennis courts, twelve in number, and still multiplying; and
academy acres, grown from six or seven to three hundred
and twenty. On the other hand, scholarship holds its own
against athletics and physical comforts; its faculty of thirty
or more has included distinguished men like Bradley L.
Cilley in Greek; George L. Kittredge in English Literature,
and George A. Wentworth in mathematics.

But Benjamin Abbott, principal of the academy from
1788 to 1838, still wears his diadem. He created the stim-
ulating atmosphere, the high standards, the noble traditions,
which others have perpetuated. Fire destroyed the dignified
colonial Main Hall erected in 1794; and also destroyed its
successor, " a product of darkest nineteenth-century archi-
tecture." But Cram and Ferguson have reinstalled the fine
early type.

Those familiar with Charles Kingsley's life will recall
that he walked from Cambridge to London, fifty-two miles,
in a day. Also within the compass of a day, Mr. Silver, at
the close of his Academy training, walked sixty miles from
Exeter to Hopkinton. He was as vitally alive mentally as
physically, and longed to make Dartmouth his Alma Mater.
That institution beginning as a romantically public-spirited
school for training Indians, had emerged under Wheelock
and his son from its log-hut stage of equipment, and was
arousing attention abroad. Young Silver would have en-
riched Dartmouth with his stimulating and contagious love
of study; but grandfather Silver's purse was in inverse ratio
to his generosity. He could but give his six sons good pre-
liminary school training, supplemented by affectionate home
nurture in intelligence, piety, and integrity; with a bestowal
of his blessing and one hundred dollars upon each in turn
when about to leave the rooftree and enter the big untried
world. Abiel's college aspirations therefore received a
check.

Judge John Harris of Hopkinton, who was the senior of
my father by twenty-eight years, and greatly influenced his

136 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

early life, deserves a paragraph. A graduate of Harvard
in 1791, he served forty-one years as county probate judge,
and as associate justice of the New Hampshire supreme
court of judicature. Admiring the little lad Abiel Silver,
he nurtured and led him socially and spiritually, free-
masonry becoming one of the bonds of comradeship. Judge
Harris became a Knight Templar, and his clear strong hand-
writing is in evidence before me in a faded document which
proved an open sesame when my father fared forth into
the big world. It is dated April 13, 1819, and recommends
him

" To the Fraternity of Free and accepted Masons."

I will outrun the regular sequence of events for a moment
to quote from a letter yellow with age lying before me dated
December 15, 1826, which says: "Mr. Silver thinks of tak-
ing a journey to Rutland, Vt., this winter to receive the degree
of Knighthood which forms the climax of Masonry."

HI. BETROTHAL

Dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy.

— Henry V, A.D. 1623.

The child lovers, Abiel and Ednah, having reached ma-
turity, plighted their undying troth in 1818. They had lived
in eventful times — the prodigious acquisition of the Louisi-
ana Territory, the exciting conspiracy of Aaron Burr, the
wonder of steam navigation up the Hudson, violent party
controversies under Jefferson. Together they had watched
in 1815 the dramatic ending of two important wars, in Gen-
eral Jackson's brilliant victory at New Orleans, and the Corsi-
can's surrender at Waterloo.

In 1819 young Silver went forth high heartedly into the
world in quest of a career. Treasured in his heart was the
betrothal promise; enclosed in his pocket book, one hundred
dollars; stowed in his trunk, valuable letters of introduction
from the ardent Churchman, Judge Harris. Hospitable doors
were to open to the young wanderer by Episcopalians and
members of the Masonic Order. He visited several large
towns; and subsequent to his stay in Albany time has proved

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 137

that the world is small. Fifty-six years later, in the year
1875, Rev. Albert H. Plumb and the Rev. Abiel Silver met
in the Roxbury Bray-Burnham home wherein a marriage
had recently been solemnized between a Congregational bride
and a Swedenborgian bridegroom; and these two ecclesi-
astical shepherds looking after their respective sheep, dis-
covered that they had friends in common in Albany.

Mr. Silver, the young wanderer, finally settled in 1820 in
Ogdensburg, New York, on the St. Lawrence River, where,
for five years, he maintained a private school of his own
founding. The membership rose to one hundred, and he
consumed much midnight oil in study that he might keep in
advance of his bright, question-loving students. I have read
the original rhymed letter indited by this fun-loving peda-
gogue in which he entertainingly describes his pupils.

During these years, except for Miss Hastings, Judge John
Harris was his chief correspondent. From the Harris heirs,
fifty years later, Mr. Silver obtained, after much persuasion,
ninety-nine of his own letters, urging that after the death
of the recipient the writer had the strongest claim. From
these letters I learn that my father's intimate correspondence
with the Judge was devoted largely to the claims of the Epis-
copal Church. Before me lies the most important of the
ninety-nine, dated from Ogdensburg on August 16, 1823,
in which Mr. Silver says:

" Bishop Hobart is expected here the 24th inst. when the
rite of confirmation will probably be received by as many
as 30 in this place. Under Mr. Carter's pious ministry
we are meeting together at the Church three times a week,
specially for the preparation and the reception of that holy
rite. I am doubly anxious to receive it, I believe it will af-
ford me great consolation."

During six of their seven betrothal years, Mr. Silver and
Miss Hastings were separated by unfeeling and insensate
miles. While he was wrestling with theological and peda-
gogical problems, she was attending the Pembroke Academy
where the curriculum was undoubtedly meagre, but from
whence she emerged clothed in good manners tinctured with
deference, with the ability to express herself clearly, and

138 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

to read aloud in a way to charm the cultured ear. Musical
choral training in the Messiah came later.

Ednah Hastings was now to have the first great travel
adventure of her life. On March 5, 1821, she set out with
her resourceful brother-in-law, Enoch Long, her sister, Mary-
Hastings Long, and the little four-year-old niece, Lucia, for
the banks of the Mississippi.* Transit was not rapid. Ameri-
can travelers must wait eight years more for the first steam
railway. This two months' journey was accomplished by
driving southward from New Hampshire with increasingly
difficult roads; sailing from Brownsville, Virginia, down the
Monongahela and Ohio Rivers for a fortnight on a flat-boat
fourteen feet by twenty-four purchased for the occasion ; with
the family sheltered at one end, the horses at the other, and
the covered vehicle on the roof; passing Cincinnati with its
ten thousand inhabitants; selling the boat at Shawneetown,
niinois, and resuming wheels across the state to Alton, the
point of destination.

The character of Miss Hastings was brought out by one
experience. Yielding to urgent petition, she took in charge
a neighborhood public district school which had hitherto
proved a Waterloo, each teacher in turn having been floored
metaphorically, and possibly literally, by the insubordinate
element. The chief off"ender, on hearing of the new arrange-
ment, flung out his challenge: " I would like to see the woman
who could make me mind! " Miss Hastings had no physical
force back of her, no head-master armed with birch as a court
of final appeal. She began by capturing the good will of
the ringleader, who became her devoted ally; he could not do
enough for her. The other boys, having the gang spirit, held
together; and, not sufficiently strong to lead in mutiny, but
admiring power, turned their allegiance to the new force
unexpectedly at the top. She achieved success because she
saw a possible hero under every boy's jacket. She idealized
men to the end of her life, and maintained toward them a
touch of deference.

The betrothal letters of Abiel Silver and Ednah Hastings

* See remarkable life of Enoch Long filling vol. ii. of Chicago Historical Col-
lection, Chicago, 1884.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 139

which had been passing each other, shuttle-like, between the
St. Lawrence and the Mississippi demanded a postage of
twenty-five cents each. Prepayment was not compulsory,
and etiquette demanded that the gentleman cover the expense
in both directions. Two of these epistles survive — careful
in chirography, grave in spirit, strongly individual in opinion.
Although warmed with an underglow of love, there is no rash
impetuosity, no unrestrained vehemence, no careless rapture
of expression. The God of the Pilgrims was watching them;
they must write worthily of Him. There is a reverent atti-
tude toward marriage, much discussion of the comparative
claims of the Episcopal and Orthodox Churches, and an
earnest desire for complete spiritual sympathy. Fifteen years
later, these two persons would find accordant vision in a
Church home.

IV. MARRIAGE

Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands,
How the red roses flush up in her cheekes.

Ring ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne,

And leave your wonted labors for this day:

This day is holy ; doe ye write it downe,

That ye forever it remember may.

— Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion on his own
marriage to Elizabeth, A.D. 1595.

Ednah Hastings had been made fatherless ten years before,
the hearthstone was deserted, and the family scattered. As
a foil to this somber picture, the hospitable rooftree of her
big-hearted Uncle Simeon Tyler furnished sunshine, ample
space, and good cheer as a gift to her wedding. One of its
four square rooms on the ground floor witnessed the marriage
ceremony, and I have often seen its wainscoted walls, small
panes, and high, narrow, hand-carved mantle-shelf. The
whole building is now " restored " out of all recognition. The
alliance was cordially approved by both houses: Mr. Silver
was made royally welcome; and, in turn. Grandfather Silver
often said in later years, " Ednah, if you do not deserve as
much love as any child I have in the world, you get more
than your share."

140 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

The date of the afternoon marriage was May 16, 1825,
with fifty guests present. Ednah's sister Laura served as
bridesmaid,* and was proud of the groomsman, George W.
Long, whom she had known from childhood, and who was
now a manly West Point artillery officer of twenty-six. He
was the brother of Enoch, the pioneer, and of Major Stephen
H. Long, U. S. A., who had already explored 26,000 miles
of wilderness, discovering and giving the name to Long's
Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

The officiating clergyman at the wedding was the village
pastor. Rev. Roger Conant Hatch of Yale, 1815, who rep-
resented Orthodox Puritanism, toned and sweetened in spirit.
A parishioner writes, declaring his likeness to Goldsmith's
" Village Preacher."

Ednah, the bride, wore a lace cap wreathed with flowers,
a gown of wrought Swiss muslin with two plain flounces, a
lace rufl", and gauze sash. She writes of her wedding attire,
that " all these pretty things are of little moment," and she
speaks of the nuptial ceremony as " the important crisis."
At the close of the festivities, the entire company went in
chaises to the meeting-house, presumably for the signing of
a marriage contract, after which the bridal pair, accompanied
by six of their young friends, drove as far as Concord, New
Hampshire, ten miles. The three-hundred-mile wedding jour-
ney to the new home which should have consumed only five
days, was extended to nine, because of irregularity in con-
nection of stages and boats, via Hanover, New Hampshire;
Montpelier and Burlington, Vermont; and Plattsburg, New
York, to Waddington on the St. Lawrence, seventy miles from
Lake Ontario. Mr. Silver in his quest for a career, after
five years as a pedagogue at Ogdensburg, had moved down
the St. Lawrence River to Waddington, and was now a mer-
chant.

Although my mother's maiden family name was now sec-
ondary, I will record that she was very proud of it. I think
that she could really feel the superior Hastings blood coursing
in her veins. Had she been a guest in some fortress-castle dur-

* As the younger sister, Ednah, married first, it was said of Laura in old
family letters that " she must dance in the brass kettle."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 141

ing mediaeval days, she would have taken her seat above the
salt with assured and unconscious ease. Accepting the state-
ment that "the family tree is not indigenous to our soil," I
endeavored while in the British Museum to trace the trans-
plantation of ours hither, but without success. Since my
mother's death I have dropped the matter, out of fear that
my ancestors might prove so superior that I could not live
up to them. Imagine the discovery of more than one Lady
Hastings in the ancestral line possessing an imperial presence,
distinction of manner, courtly grace, and a high-bred air;
and imagine a discerning critic wondering, in view of the
present generation, whether these social graces were interred
with their bones. Nevertheless I love to climb the genealogi-
cal trees of other people, and to enjoy the fair fruit. Re-
garding my darling old Papa, I only trace his lineage back
to his paternal grandfather born in 1730, and bearing the
Biblical name Samuel. If Abiel Silver's shield is permitted
to bear any quarterings it will be for this reason: that he,
during a life time, maintained a high degree of courtesy
toward his wife and daughter. In this connection it is inter-
esting to recall the na'ive remark of little Anatole France
who tried to enact on his mother's kitchen table the role of
the pillar saint, Simeon Stylites. Upon being called down,
he exclaimed, " It is always very hard to be a saint in the
midst of one's family."

If you had been guests of Mr. and Mrs. Silver in their
new home on the St. Lawrence, you would have seen an island
three miles long, where lived the Ogdens who, after the
fashion of the day, contributed to my mother's album, after
this wise:

They composed grave verses on Prayer, devotional verses
on The Redemption, and gloomy verses on Dying. Bachelors
indited their sentiments of playful irony. Mr. Atwater (who
afterwards married) under the title of Misanthrope Hours,
enters a list of life's illusions, ending with woman:

" When eyes of fire their flashes sent,
And rosy lips looked eloquent,
Oh, I have turned and wept to find
Beneath it all a trifling mind. "

142 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Mr. Silver, having exchanged his five-year role of peda-
gogue in Ogdensburg for a five-year vocation of merchant
at Waddington, felt that residence at the latter place was
tentative. It was a sojourn, rather than a permanent abode;
diversified by visits and little journeys, with happy hearth-
stone experiences forming the warp and woof of life. His
wife's declining health spurred him on in 1831 to wind up
his affairs " in a trice," and to give her a two-hundred-mile
carriage-drive by easy stages to Saratoga Springs for a stay
of months. And then westward on a venture.

V. STRIKING ROOT

For a better and higher gift than this there cannot be, when with accordant
aims man and wife have a home.

Odyssey VI, 181-185, B.C. 1000.

Come live with me. . . .
And I will make thee beds of roses.
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle.
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

— Christopher Marlowe, A.D. 1600.

On November 3, 1831, Mr. and Mrs. Silver arrived at
Edwardsburg, Cass County, Michigan Territory. The town
was bounded on the west by Beardsley's Prairie three miles
long, and so prodigally spangled with wild flowers as to
be fit for a Moslem paradise; and here, for a score of years,
roses in large variety were to blossom under Mrs. Silver's
sympathetic hand. Picture her, as I remember her, wearing
on her head a snood or calash made of wine-colored brocade
shirred on to slender willow rods, rendering it, when in dis-
use, collapsible like a jointed carriage top.

The village, whose main street was lively with post coaches
in transit, was situated on one of the roads radiating from
Detroit. A hundred miles west of Edwardsburg lay Fort
Dearborn, around which gathered a few inhabitants; the spot
to be incorporated within two years as the town of Chicago.

Mr. Silver entered promptly into mercantile arrangements,
establishing one store at Edwardsburg and another at Casso-
polis, the county seat; the two equidistant from Niles, the
point of arrival by vessel for his commodities which came
from New York via the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Lakes

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 143

Huron and Michigan, and the St. Joseph River. Increasing
his four thousand dollar purchases the first year to twenty
thousand dollars the second, he had also gained a lesson in_
selection; his first cargo of coffee being sold out in three
weeks, and his tea lasting three years. Here, in 1835, he
secured a home, purchasing for twelve hundred dollars the
old Edwards estate of twenty acres bounded on the north by
Pleasant Lake. As years went on, Mr. Silver's mercantile
ventures were subject to vicissitude. Later, he had thrown
the business on his partners, and had become in a degree a
silent member.

His official life comes into view. Mrs. Silver writes from
Edwardsburg under date of April 21, 1833:

" Mr. Silver has just received an appointment from the
Governor of the Territory as Judge of the Circuit Court of
this County." The original official document in the form
of an appointm.ent lies before me, and begins after this wise:

" George B. Porter,
Governor in and over the Territory of Michigan,
To all to whom these presents may come — Greeting:
Know ye, that, reposing special trust and confidence in the
integrity and ability of Abiel Silver, I have nominated, and
by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council
of the said Territory have appointed him Associate Judge of
the Circuit Court in and for the County of Cass for the term
of three years." It was renewed in 1836.

We have seen Mr. Silver as a fun-loving pedagogue, and
as a state official; we see him now as a fun-loving federal
official. In one of his wife's letters to old friends, he adds
the following:

" Do you know of a rhymster who writes to save pence
In odd jingling rhymes, whether sense or nonsense?
Then place to the credit of that poetaster
One shilling and sixpence —

A. Silver, Postmaster.'"

A Washington letter lying before me from the Second
Assistant Postmaster General under President Van Buren is
dated February 20, 1838, and appoints Mr. Silver postmaster

144 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

at Edwardsburg. The appointment was renewed on August
17, 1843.

It seems difficult to keep out of office in Michigan. Before
me lies an appointment made by the head of the state and
confirmed by the senate offering Mr. Silver the Commission-
ership of the Land Office at Marshall for two years. It is
dated February 16, 1846, and signed by Gov, Alpheus Felch.
A reappointment for two years more is dated February 5,
1848, and signed by Governor Epaphroditus Ransom.

In March, 1848, Mr. Silver as Commissioner went on
horseback through the mud from Marshall to Lansing, the
new Capital of the state. The distance was fifty miles. He
was eagerly interested in education, and by the laws of the
state, the sixteenth section of every surveyed township was
to be set apart for the support of public schools. He found
that the school section at Lansing was an admirable site
for the State Capitol, being fifty feet above the Grand River.
The keen scent of land speculators had brought them there,
and they presented their inferior site, with a remote, almost
intangible hint of bribery. Mr. Silver dismissed them in
six words: "Gentlemen, I am not for sale." He carried the
day by devoted effort. After Mr. Silver's death in 1881, the
Detroit Society of the New Jerusalem, through its clerk, Mr.
James Wilkie, sent my mother and me a letter of sympathy
embodying in its preamble these words:

"And Whereas, Mr. Silver, as a citizen of Michigan for
many years, and especially as Commissioner of the State
Land Office, performed for our state important trusts and
uses (among others projecting and by his efforts securing
the location of our State Capitol on school lands, thereby
largely swelling the State school funds), therefore. Resolved,"
&c.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 145

VI. ABORIGINES

Swing thee low in thy cradle soft,

Deep in the dusky wood;
Swing thee low and swing aloft —

Sleep, as a papoose should.
The coyote howls on tlie prairie wild.

And the owlet howls in the tree;
And tlie hig moon shines on the little child

As it slumbers peacefully.

Sleep as a papoose should;
For, safe in your birchen nest,
Quiet will come, and peace, and rest.
If the little papoose is good.

— From an Indian Cradle Song interpreted
by the Chilocco Indian School Journal.

Indian traditions supplied a background for the Edwards-
burg life. Our oak tree, huge and ancient, standing between
the house and Lake Pleasant, had been a peace-rendezvous
for hostile red men where they had buried the hatchet and
smoked together the pipe of peace. Real live aborigines
added a touch of picturesqueness. Occasionally a young
mother of the friendly Pottawatamie tribe appealed to Mrs.
Silver for succor. Slipping from her forehead the strap by
which she carried her papoose in its little woven cradle on
her back, she leaned against the sunny side of the house the
board to which all was fastened; and, leaving the grave
little one outside, she entered, asking for quashgun (bread).
Pokagon and other chiefs visited the Silvers, bringing their
interpreters, and adding pantomime of their own. When
urged to a final helping at the table, they expressed their
sense of repletion by patting their stomach, and placing their
hand under their chin — "full up to here." The hospitality
was returned. Several white gentlemen sat in an Indian
tent around a table on which the central dish was succotash,
a mixture of corn and beans. After partaking for a while,
the chief said, " Squaw, carry it off." Later he said, "Squaw,
bring it back again." And it was repeatedly removed and
returned, until it had been served as many times as the
number of courses observed by the chief at the white man's
table. Mr. Silver often related this incident: A white man

146 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

and a red man were in a forest, and were conversing side
by side sitting on the fallen trunk of a tree, when, almost im-
perceptibly the Indian crowded his neighbor to the end of the
log. When the latter protested, he received this retort:

" That is the way that the paleface crowds the Indian off
of his land."

Mr. Silver often remarked upon the equity of the Indians
in small matters. Upon killing a deer, they would hang a
quarter on a tree, and other fellow-tribesmen did not steal the
venison from this outdoor larder. It was by no means so
safe among white men.

Sculpture, Music, Fiction, and Ethnology are paying trib-
ute. Mr. Cyrus E. Dallin's equestrian series embodies the
attitude of the American aborigines toward the conquering
race from Europe. The first, " The Signal of Peace," de-
picts a Sioux chief in feathered bonnet, pointing upward with
his spear as a recognized symbol of peace toward the white
man. The sculptor, familiar with Indian life, witnessed this
scene at the conclusion of a treaty of peace in Utah, the home
of his boyhood. The second, "The Medicine Man," with
hand raised in warning, sets forth the dawning suspicion of
the tawny native toward the white invader. The third, " Pro-
test," portrays the Indian with clenched fist and rearing
horse, engaged in the warfare of tribesman against settler.
The final one of the series, in front of the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts, represents " The Appeal to the Great Spirit," the
devout Indian in prayer looking upward for deliverance.
Edward McDowell in his Indian Suite, Anton Dvorak in his
Indian Symphony, and the Smithsonian in its illustrated vol-
umes, keep the aborigines in remembrance.

Skiushushu, Chief Red Fox of the Blackfoot Indians, is
pictured in a bonnet of spreading feathers, with keen eyes
and a strong face beneath. He is in the correspondence de-
partment of our Theological School with a view of giving
the principles of our faith to his people. He is founding
an eighty-acre Home for Indian Boys and Girls, and a Chris-
tian Tepee Mission Society for their home training in prepa-
ration for the public schools. See Neiv-Church Messenger,
October 22, also November 5, 1919, p. 302, where he writes:

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 147

" It is a very interesting fact to me, that Black Hawk and
I notice in very many of the studies of Christian Church min-
isters that we find books of the New-Church teachings. . . ."

VH. A REMARKABLE BISHOP
THE SHIP AND THE RAFT

The one well authorized, the other self appointed; the one put together by
the hand of a Divine Artisan; the other, the voluntary fortuitous meeting to-
gether of discordant material.

— The Episcopal Church set forth by antithesis,
by Bishop Chase. P. 268.*

To be shepherded by a Bishop in Michigan from 1832 to
1836 was a great event to Mr. and Mrs. Silver. For years,
after the manner of truly zealous laymen, they had attended
Church at Niles. The round trip by carriage was twenty-four
miles. "How excellent," they would say in their happy-
hearted way, '"the sun at our back when driving westward
in the morning, and also behind us on our return in the
afternoon."

Philander Chase, bom in New Hampshire in 1775, was
the great-great-great-grandson of Aquila Chase of England.
At thirty-six, Philander was rector of Christ Church at Hart-
ford, Connecticut. Here he reached the very acme of ease
in Zion; admirable parish, ample income, lovely wife, two
noble boys in school, and an affirmative attitude toward him
on the part of his co-workers: a picture pretty much all high
lights. But the lure of the West was upon him, coupled with
the conviction that he should extend his beloved Church
toward the setting sun. He was consecrated as bishop Feb-
ruary 11th, 1819. Eight years later, eight thousand acres
of land in Knox County, Ohio, were advantageously pur-
chased for Kenyon College. This institution was as truly
a child of the Bishop as the Virginia University was a child
of Thomas Jefferson. The land was fertile, well-watered,
well-timbered, healthful, and with good well-sites; but the
Bishop was told that to found his college " from the stump "
was "madness." He and two others visited it. They found

* The Life of Philander Chase, First Bishop of Ohio and Illinois, Founder of
Kenyon and Jubilee Colleges. By his grand-daughter, Laura Chase Smith. 341
pp. New York, E. P. Button and Co. 1903.

148 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

a plain a mile long covered with fallen timber interlaced
with midergrowth where it was impossible to move a rod
without cutting a path; and they slept to "the howl of the
wolf, the call of the fox, and the hoot of the owl," diversified
by rattlesnakes in the daytime. The Bishop summoned work-
men, and, in less than three years, eight hundred acres had
been cleared for wheat and Indian corn.

In 1828 Kenyon College Building was rising according to
the draft made by our great American architect, Bulfinch of
Washington. The Bishop's Life tells us that he was every-
where, and did everything. He was his own forester, land-
scape-gardener, architect, and builder, constructing his own
saw-mill, flour-mill, and printing press. He was the educa-
tional head of Kenyon, with great appointive privileges. He
was the ecclesiastical head of vast spiritual powers. As time
passed on, friction ensued; he resigned his offices; and he
pointed significantly to a picture of King Lear on his walls,
as he quitted forever the scene of eight years of Herculean
labors (Lf/e, p. 238).

Shortly after this, Mr. and Mrs. Silver knew him in Mich-
igan. He had turned his back on his wrongs, and diffused
sweetness. Under date of April 21, 1833, my mother writes
from Edwardsburg:

"To-morrow Bishop Chase and lady are coming to spend
a week with us, and preach in this and surrounding villages.
He is a father of the Church in every sense of the word, and
a very interesting old gentleman in the private circle." He
was original. Cincinnatus, his chief pet, a pony about the
size of a Shetland, was as individual as a human child. Once,
the Bishop apologized for coming in late to see a guest, be-
cause he had " just been turning Cincinnatus into the Mediter-
ranean" (out to pasture). He dated his letters from "Rob-
ins' Nest" because his house "was built of sticks and mud,
and filled with young ones." He and his family spent their
last week in Michigan at my father's home on their way to
a permanent home in Illinois, where he founded Jubilee
College. The Bishop's little daughter writes to her brother
(pp. 276, 277, in the Life) :

" At length the day arrived when we should leave our once

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 149

happy home. . . . The ox-team driven by a hired man, led
the van; the old carriage with the family came next; then
H. in the other wagon, and P. on old Cincinnatus brought up
the rear. At Lima I mounted old Cincinnatus, as we had
agreed to take turns riding him. The next morning we
were up betimes, and rode ten miles before breakfast. We
entered Edwardsburg about noon, and were received very
kindly by Mr. and Mrs. S., where we intended to spend
Sunday. Father preached the next day to a large congre-
gation of attentive hearers. Cincinnatus was here found to
be so lame that we could ride him no farther, and we were
obliged to send him back; but as we could find no one going
that way, father tied a bit of board about his neck, with,
as near as I can recollect, these words upon it:

'My name is Cincinnatus, I belong to P. Chase, Gilead,
Bishop of Illinois. I am eighteen years old, and somewhat
lame. Let me pass on to Gilead, Michigan, where I shall
be well taken care of through the winter, as a reward for
my past services.'

We then turned him out to seek his fortune. We have not
heard from him since, but I have no doubt he went directly
home."

VHL /ESCULAPTUS

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
WiU seize the doctor too.

— Cymbeline, V, 5, 1626.

In August, 1834, Mrs. Silver was stricken with bilious
fever. Mr. Silver in his light buggy drawn by Old Kate
scoured the prairie in search of a nurse, but sickness was
widely prevalent and efforts were in vain. He then bethought
himself of Mrs. Shintafer, a sturdy Dutch woman who had
borne her husband twenty-one children. Rumor declared
that she had much gold hidden away in the toes of stockings
and in other places of home deposit; and it was well known
that she would refuse compensation for solicited service.
But the plight was desperate, and Mr. Silver, knowing of
her big heart, ventured to put in a petition. She replied
affirmatively, saying that she would stay until she had seen

150 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

his wife on her feet. Immediately after this juncture, her
neighbors proffered advice :

"Don't go to Mrs. Silver's; she is a very proud woman,
and she won't speak to you after she gets well."

" Never you mind, I have given my word, and I shall go."

She came. Illness was prolonged, and at the end of six
weeks her patient was reduced to fifty pounds, on the old
maxim, starve a fever. Mercury was the reigning remedy
of the day; calomel was administered by physician's orders
until Mrs. Silver was salivated. But her magnificent consti-
tution triumphed, although the muscles of the jaw were con-
tracted, so that for the ensuing year she must needs be nour-
ished on liquids only. On Mr. Silver's earliest visit to New
York after her recovery he brought to Mrs. Shintafer a hand-
some silk gown; and he and his wife drove frequently to her
home with offerings of fruit, messages, and other expressions
of good will. Finally, the long and useful life of the good
woman was drawing to a close, and she sent for her former
patient, and delivered to her this oral message:

" Mrs. Silver, I am on my dying bed ; I shall never rise
from it except to meet my Saviour at the Day of Judgment.
And before I go I wish solemnly to affirm to you regarding
your sickness, that if I had not thrown the greater part of
your medicine out of the window you would not be alive
this day! "

In the year 1849 Mr. Silver visited various Eastern cities.
Cholera was prevalent, and he carried home the seeds of it.
One morning soon after his return he came down to break-
fast wearing a green and yellow aspect of countenance, and
before night his recovery was highly doubtful, convulsions
having set in.

While still able to assert himself, he laid down the absolute
decree that under no circumstances whatever was any phy-
sician to be admitted to his chamber. He also called atten-
tion to a simple prescription for cholera which he had
brought home from New York, as follows:

"Drop twenty drops of the spirits of camphor on a tea-
spoonful of sugar, and dissolve the whole in twenty teaspoon-
fuls of water. Administer one teaspoonful of the mixture

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 151

once in five minutes, diminishing the frequency as the symp-
toms abate."

Mr. Silver's two attendants, his wife and her sister, ad-
ministered the remedy according to directions, and bestowed
care as suggested by experience and common sense: the room
darkened, quiet, well ventilated; nourishment slight and sim-
ple, cold applications to the feverish head, hot applications
to the seats of pain. The case was very severe, but not fatal;
Mr. Silver came down in a day and consumed three months
in recovery.

In the meantime the doctors in and about Edwardsburg
were consumed with curiosity that he should have triumphed
without them; and they all signed a "round robin" letter
humbly petitioning that they might be permitted to visit him
in a non-official capacity. To this he returned a cordial note
of welcome; personally he liked them very much; but he
had vowed a mighty vow against their "Herculean doses."
They came, and he expatiated on the remedial excellencies
of camphor.

In 1836 a third event occurred which, if the reader will
pardon the lack of chronological sequence in this narrative,
I will now describe. Mr. Silver's orchard had just been
pruned and he was reviewing the work when he discovered
a little inadvertent neglect. Drawing down a limb with one
hand that he might remove a few twigs, his pruning knife
slipped and tapped the main artery of the left wrist. The
blood spurted quite a long distance at each pulsation, but
Mr. Silver with his usual presence of mind grasped the left
wrist vigorously with his right hand, walked into the house
and ordered the surgeon to be summoned. Dr. B. came. He
was a man of years, had served professionally in the regular
army, was a man of experience, skill and success. But he
was becoming intemperate, a condition which affected his
judgment but not his manners, and was as yet unsuspected.
With a patient of admirable physique the surgical problem
was a simple one, but Dr. B. blundered. Again and again
the artery broke out; he introduced a styptic; he trenched
on the edge of a nerve, and nearly produced lockjaw.

A council of physicians was called; blood poisoning was

152 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

pronounced imminent, and amputation near the shoulder
was declared inevitable to save the patient's life. Anaesthetics
were unknown in 1836, and the operating surgeon declared
that Mr. Silver did not move a muscle of his face during
the removal of the limb. Immediately after, the physicians
pointed out to Dr. B. the condition of the wrist, whereat
he turned perfectly white, and was silent. Later, he sent
in a bill for fifty dollars for professional services, whereupon
Mr. Silver sent for him, and delivered this ultimatum:

" Dr. B., if you were worth a dollar in the world, I would
sue you heavily for damages; as you are not, you will go
scot free, but you will receive no compensation from me."

The doctor silently quitted the house. He went from bad
to worse, was responsilDle for much subsequent malpractice,
gradually lost his patronage. When his own death was ap-
proaching, he gave this order:

" Fasten a bracket in the corner of this room; place on it a
black bottle, and write underneath the following inscription:
This is what killed Dr. B."

A pleasant bit of sunshine came into Mr. Silver's life dur-
ing his illness. His brother-in-law, Enoch Long, with his
two boys, Hastings and Stephen, came, accompanied by a
brilliant and delightful surgeon, Dr. Peter W. Handle, who
at twenty-five had married the lads' sister, Lucia Long, a
charming girl of seventeen. Both she and her firstborn had
been called to the spiritual world recently; and the husband,
seeking distraction from his grief, had planned a rapid and
extensive eastern trip; but finding Mr. Silver "in a serious
and dangerous condition," he said at once,

" I will stay and see you safely out of the woods."
He lived to be an octogenarian and served in the United
States Navy, practising medicine and surgery many years in
San Francisco. But the sunshine of Dr. Randle's presence
was as nothing to the psychological experiences of Mr. Silver
in connection with the loss of his arm, which threw con-
firmatory crosslights on the new things he was to learn
regarding the spiritual body; all of which will be related in
the next chapter. He has often been heard to speak of this
deprivation of a limb as one of the great blessings of his
life.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 153

IX. DISCOVERY OF THE NEW CHURCH

The Master is come, and calleth for thee.

— Martha of Bethany to Mary.

We now come to a transcendent event: the reception by
Mr. and Mrs. Silver of the New-Church faith which changed
the whole current of their lives. The first New Churchman
whom they ever saw was a Mr. Lawrence, coming, I think,
from Cincinnati. He liked to tangle up Mrs. Silver's mind
in her illogical creed in order to show her the way out;
and he lent her husband a volume of Swedenborg. But they
opened it to a description of the spiritual world which they
distorted and rejected, because they did not know the laws
of that world.

We see therefore that Mr. Lawrence was at the best only
a forerunner — a kind of Lief Eric; the real Christopher
Columbus who brought my parents in 1839 to a knowledge
of the new world of spiritual thought was Mr. Edwin Burn-
ham of Detroit. He was thirty-six years of age, and his
mother had already been baptized into our faith. The Rev.
Holland Weeks (1768-1843), father-in-law of Mr. Burn-
ham, consecrated as a clergyman of our faith in 1821, visited
Detroit, and instituted its New Church Society on August 25,
1839. Mr. Burnham was appointed its leader, and continued
services " on each welcome recurrence of the Holy Sabbath."
After the manner of Mr. William Schlatter of Philadelphia,
Mr. Burnham, who was also engaged in merchandise, was
accustomed to place New-Church books and tracts in boxes
of goods sent out; and Mr. Silver, dependent on Detroit as
well as New York for his purchases, became the happy re-
cipient of these spiritual commodities. Cordial personal
intercourse between these two men followed. Mr. Edwin
Burnham's brother Lyman, writing me from Brooklyn on
April 1st, 1881, says:

" How well / remember the happiness of my dear brother
Edwin, in Detroit, over forty years ago, when he came home
late at night and told us of a conversation he had just had
with Mr. Silver about the New-Church doctrines, and how
delighted he was! And how many times since then have I

154 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

thought of that night, and of the happy and important resuUs
which have followed! And now I hope they will meet in
heaven, — bright, useful and happy angels! "

Having attended a Burnham-Goddard wedding in 1866
and its Golden semi-centennial celebration later, I insert a
direct New-Church genealogical line:

i. Rev. Holland Weeks married Harriet Hopkins,
ii. Elizabeth H. Weeks married Edwin Bumham.

iii. Mary Burnham married Rev. John Goddard.

iv. Bertha Goddard married Sherman Layton.
V. Sherman Layton, Jr., of Ellis, Mass., is a great-great-
grandson of Holland Weeks.

We now return to the original thread of our story. As
there had been for years in the minds of the Silvers an under-
current away from the old creeds, the Burnham gift soon
proved a delight. Mr. Silver began Heaven and Hell without
saying anything to his wife; she discovered it tucked away
in a drawer, and read it without saying anything to him ; they
traveled invisibly side by side and soon discovered each
other. She exclaimed, regarding Swedenborg's book:

"How beautiful, if it could only be true! And yet, if
I were a school girl, and attempted a composition on Heaven,
could I write anything half as sensible? "

But her chief source of delight was the new teaching of
One God in One Person, the Lord the Saviour Jesus Christ;
the Inmost Divine Love as the Father, the Glorified Humanity
as the Son; their combined Power shed abroad as the Holy
Spirit. No longer the bewildering question: "Shall I pray
to the stern Father as more powerful, or to the compassionate
Son as more accessible? "

Mr. Silver found a rapid solution to many questions. He
recalled his experience on Lake Erie: the ship on fire, death
imminent, the panorama of his whole life in all its minutiae
flashing before his mental vision. Here was the psychological
explanation of the record: Man's natural memory retains
" everything that he has heard, seen, learned or thought in
the world from earliest infancy even to the end of life "
[Heaven and Hell, No. 461). Mr. Silver exclaimed, "I
have experienced it and I know it is true! "

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 155

He recalled the loss of his left arm three years before;
and now there still remained with him the sensation in the
spiritual arm so distinctly that he had to learn whenever he
got out of the right side of a buggy that he could not de-
pend upon his left arm to brace him against the horse.
Turning to Heaven and Hell No. 453, he read that man is
while here a spiritual being in complete human form, and
that by death, which is only the death of the earthly body,
man cannot be said to have lost anything that is really his
own. And he exclaimed, " I know that is true, for I have
experienced the death of the physical arm, and it is only
a covering." *

Mr. Silver had been observing that his two hands could
not feel each other, although he was ignorant of the fact
that they belonged to different planes of sensation. He had
also observed that the fingers of the left hand could feel
each other with a fine sensitiveness of touch which made that
of the right hand — muffled with clay — seem dull. Turning
to Heaven and Hell, Nos. 461, 462, he read that when the
spiritual touches what is spiritual it is just the same as when
the natural touches what is natural, except that the senses of
the spirit are keener, that is, more exquisite. And he ex-
claimed, " Proved by experience to be true! "

Anticipating dates, I will state that Mr. Silver visited New
York hospitals during the Civil War; found in a single ward
twenty-seven soldiers that had lost limbs, compared experi-
ences with them, and cheered them with assurances of com-
plete equipment in the next world. His explanations ap-
peared in a Tract for the Soldiers, giving the laws of the
spiritual world as illustrated from Scripture, and declaring
that " Steel cannot cut the spiritual body to pieces, nor sick-
ness of the natural body injure it, nor time terminate its ex-
istence." Mr. Silver's tract rendered a second service: Mr.
John MacLachlan of Toronto issued a reprint of five thousand

* A materialistic theory is abroad that the sensation remaining after an ampu-
tation is due to the brain receiving the message from the severed nerves as if
they still had their normal extension. But Mr. Silver retained the sensation
undiminished at the end of forty-two years, when the severed arm with its
nerves, tendons, bones, and muscles had gone wholly out of existence as a bit of
human organism, and its elements had been distributed elsewhere.

156 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

copies for distribution to soldiers after the Indian Uprising
in Canada in 1886.

Mr. Field, a devoted pioneer in the New Church, tells us
in his partially autobiographical work * that he learned of a
Judge Silver, an Episcopalian, interested in the New Church;
that he wrote him expressing his desire for an acquaintance;
that Mr. Silver immediately responded, bringing him to his
Edwardsburg home on January 1st, 1842, for a fortnight's
visit and arranging for the delivery of lectures.

Visiting them later at their special and earnest request, he
writes:

" Mr. and Mrs. Silver were no less earnest and indefatiga-
ble in their efforts to make known to all who had ears to
hear, the beautiful truths and glad tidings of great joy which
are now made known to the world in the heavenly doctrines
of the New Jerusalem. On leaving the abode of my kind
entertainers at Edwardsburg, which I did in their company,
riding with them in their carriage about sixty miles of my
homeward journey, I turned my face again toward Battle
Creek" (Field's Me77zozV5, p. 32).

Mr. Hans Thielson, entering the baptismal gate of the
New Church through Mr. Field on the same day as the Silvers
— January the third, 1844 — was a Dane from Flensburg,
Schleswig-Holstein, whose ancestors had been merchantmen
for nearly three centuries. He was marked by ingenuous-
ness, and gentle kindliness of spirit. Combined with high
ideals and reverence, were an excellent intellect and inde-
pendence of thought. Coming early to America, he fol-
lowed engineering with increasing honors for fifty years.
Well equipped with recommendations, he entered service for
the Michigan Central R. R., was transferred to the Burling-
ton and Quincy, and did distinguished work under Henry
Villard on the Northern Pacific, commanding fifteen thousand

men. t

Judge Digby V. Bell and Judge Silver, beside sharing the

* Memoirs, Incidents and Reminiscences of the Early History of the New
Church in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Adjacent States; and Canada, by
Rev. George Field. Toronto, New York, London, 1879.

t Indebtedness for facts is acknowledged to Rev. J. S. David's appreciative
tribute in Neiv-Church Messenger, May 27, 1896, vol. Ixx.

Judge Digby V. Bell

William Bell, son of Digby

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 157

bench, were both in the State Land office, and were spiritual
comrades as well. The hospitality of the former was spa-
cious, like his heart. Did not Mr. Silver once come to his
Chicago home, when ill; and did not Judge and Mrs. Bell
receive him as if the care of a guest under the weather were
a vested right — precious and unalienable! And what a
warm-hearted father; how he liked to summon as many of
his eleven children as possible, place them in a row so that
their heads formed a graduated line down to the little toddler,
and then proudly exclaim to his visitor: "See my string of
Bells!"

His little daughter Sally and I were comrades, and we
thought that Dr. Charles L. Merriman — whose character
was as sunny as his name — was a New Churchman worth
while. He loved children, and he used to share double-
kerneled or philopena nuts with us; and I recall how, in
the Bells' Detroit home, we rushed out triumphantly upon
him from an ambuscade behind the parlor door, and antici-
pated him in shouting the magic word " philopena," which
entitled us to a gift from him. He might as well live in the
hearts of children as to live in dry statistical Church reports.*

Rev. Horatio N. Strong was one of the living stones in the
Lord's Church. The old-fashioned word piety fitly comes in
here, for he was strongly devotional. He and his kind-spirited
wife Rhoda bore bravely the transition to the higher life of
their noble young son William who was a member of our
household. They also had borne the privations of a new
country with a humility which was really heroic underneath.
If you knew the smallness of ministers' salaries in those
days, you would realize that with many little mouths to sup-
ply, life was a bit hard. But his children were fed spiritually
upon gratitude; their characters did not grow lean on com-
plaint. He would gather his little ones about the frugal
board, and point out the goodness of the Lord in making
these things to grow for them. I am reminded of Robert
Herrick's Thanksgiving:

* Dr. Merriman's discrimination in doctrine and his modesty as an ex-
pounder of spiritual truth are shown in The Medium, vol. iii, page 334 (1851).

158 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;

A little house, whose humble roof
Is weather proof.

Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,

Close by whose living coal I sit
And glow like it.

Lord, I confess too, when I dine
The pulse is thine.

And all those other bits that be
There placed by Thee.

Mr. Strong carried on work thereafter, chiefly missionary,
in a half dozen states during thirty years. He writes Janu-
ary 22, 1848, that he has baptized sixty-six persons in three
years, more than forty being adults {New Jerusalem Maga-
zine, vol. xxi, p. 202, February, 1848). I close with pleasant
testimony to his worth as Chaplain for several years, be-
ginning in 1848, of the Michigan State Prison. Some years
after he left the institution he was traveling on a steam train
when a stranger approached him, and said:

" You will not recognize me, Mr. Strong, but I was a con-
vict in the State Prison when you were chaplain. On the
expiration of my term I went west, where I was entirely un-
known, and began life all over again. There is my wife,"
pointing to a prepossessing young woman, " I did not deceive
her. She was told all my past history by me, but she was
willing to trust me, and she has not regretted her decision.
We have a happy, prosperous home; for with God's help I
have led a straightforward life; and I owe much, very much,
to your comforting companionship and inspiring religious
influence."

Jabez Fox, then editor of a newspaper in Marshall, made
a round trip of 180 miles by carriage that he and his young
wife might be baptized by Rev. Horatio N. Strong in the
home of Mr. Silver in Edwardsburg.

The Hon. Lucius Lyon presented a marked instance of

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 159

the effect on a man of a new point of view. The voice of
destructive Biblical criticism had come over from France,
and was luring its followers to the very border land of agnos-
ticism. But with Mr. Lyon there lay beneath the surface,
hidden from his conscious self, a longing to believe the Good
Book. Hearing a lecture by Mr. Silver on the symbolic
nature of Scripture, he came eagerly forward at its close;
and his tears of gratitude dropped on my father's extended
hand as he invited him to be his guest, the two men talked
until midnight. Judge Silver was not a controversialist; but
he had fought out many a mental battle in arriving at the
truth; and in that day of growing physical science, and de-
caying blind faith, he was instrumental in leading more than
one man through the Gate Logical into clearer light. Mr.
Lyon, wishing to read at once, chose Heaven and Hell and
the Life of Swedenborg. Exaltation and despair followed
in unequal proportion:

" Mr. Silver, these truths are glorious, I never was so happy
in my life. But I shall certainly be lost. Such opportunities
have been wasted in all the dark years! "

" What! happy, and yet going to hell, as you say? "
"Oh! but I am rejoiced that there is so beautiful a faith,
and that so many will enjoy heaven because of it! "

The number of New Churchmen in Michigan in this early
period — the nineteenth mid-century — was small; but to a
goodly number was given public office, some receiving two
or three successively. Field, Strong, and Fox were made
State Chaplains; Bell, Chamberlain, and Silver, Judges; Bell,
and Silver, Land Office commissioners, the former also Audi-
tor-General; Lucius Lyon, United States Senator and United
States Surveyor-General; John Allen and H. P. Bush, State
Senators; Amos T. Hall, State Treasurer. Mr. Robert An-
drews was Treasurer in the State Land Office under Mr. Silver.
But among all these men none was more instrumental for
good than the Rev. George Field, who belonged essentially
to the Church Militant, was a man fearless in his convictions,
and controversially able in their defence. He was a warm
friend of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem, and
liked to have the church activities in accordance with its eccle-

160 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

siastical standards. He labored nearly fifty years for the
Church, and administered baptism five hundred times.*

Mr. Silver has many times been heard to say, " The Episco-
pal Church has been a good mother to me, and has kept me
when a young man from much evil," and he still retained
strong kindly personal affection for his old friends. Bishop
John Henry Hobart of New York, who administered con-
firmation to my father in 1823, had passed in 1830 to the
other life; but the Waddington rector still lived; and Mr.
Silver wrote him of his change of faith and sent some litera-
ture. The reply came that the subject was too large for
epistolary treatment; and in accepting proffered hospitality
he preferred to talk the matter over face to face. He came
to Michigan, bringing a clerical friend ; the stay of some days
abounded in mutual geniality and good cheer with no refer-
ence to the postponed topic until the moment of leaving, when
he said to his Episcopal colleague while placing his hand
affectionately on his host's shoulder: "Well, whenever Mr.
Silver is tired of wandering we shall be glad to receive him
back into the true fold."

X. ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITISM

Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

— Luke, xvi: 31.

Animal Magnetism is first mentioned on January 25,
1843, in Mrs. Silver's letters, and it became an absorbing
topic among the receptive Western people. Hypnotic experi-
ments by ignorant amateurs were frequently tried. Two
persons sat facing each other, each holding his hand against
the hand of the other, palm to palm, each gazing steadily
into the eyes of the other. The hypnotist, with his strong,
steady will and his power of concentrated thought, soon over-
came the weaker will and the semi-passive mental attitude of
his human subject. Hypnotic sleep ensued, sometimes aided
by magnetic downward passes by the hand. Reversal upward
passes usually brought the subject to his normal wakeful-
ness; when these failed, there was usually consternation

* See article by Rev. A. A. Frost in TVew Jerusalem Messenger, Jan., 1884,
vol. xliv, p. 45; New Jerusalem Magazine, June, 1843, vol. xxi, p. 391.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 161

and alarm among the onlookers. I recall a man of good
heart, easy temperament, and mental equipment a little
below par, who was readily thrown into sleep in his chair
by a keen-eyed, alert-minded, decisive man, who would then
completely control him; causing him to ape all the motions
of the angler; baiting an imaginary hook with an imaginary
worm, and catching imaginary fish while holding an imagi-
nary pole.

Mr. Silver examined and experimented a little, and soon
became convinced that hypnotic power was dangerous, and
he strongly discountenanced its exercise. There was no
thought of therapeutic or other benefit to the person experi-
mented on; it was largely a drawing-room diversion by which
one person controlled the muscular system, and even the
mind of another. It was more than physiological, it was psy-
chological power invading the danger zone.

About this time Mr. T. S. Arthur, a New Churchman of
Philadelphia, published a notable article entitled, Agnes, or
the Possessed, regarding which he declared that its statements
were facts well authenticated. Agnes, the heroine, was a
sweet, ingenuous young girl, who consented to become a sub-
ject for hypnotic experiment, making this condition with
the two honorable physicans in question, that she was never
to be impelled, when unconscious, to do anything which she
would not be willing to do if conscious. The pledge was
given and kept. But post hypnotic suggestion constantly in-
creased, until even in her wakeful and conscious moments,
they could arrest her footsteps on the opposite side of the
street, and otherwise gravely interfere with her freedom
of action. Vainly she endeavored to throw off their influence,
until it occurred to her to say the Lord's Prayer to herself
when they endeavored to put her to sleep. It was wholly
efficacious, and the two men completely lost control. We
recall how the Lord, while here, used again and again the
words of Holy Writ to neutralize hostile influences (Matt, iv,
7; Luke iv, 8, 12).

Thought transference, now designated as telepathy, was
often discussed in Michigan in the late forties.

" Yes," said Mr. Silver, " I sit in my office absorbed in

162 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

my business affairs. Suddenly, the thought of an old friend
comes vividly to mind, with nothing whatever appealing to
the bodily senses to remind me of him or to break the earlier
continuity of thought. Three minutes later the old friend
walks in; he was thinking of me intently, and his thought was
projected ahead of his body, and arrived first."

Spiritism traveled westward soon after hypnotism and
spread like wildfire. Mr. Silver brought home from his east-
ern trip rumors of the " Rochester Rappings." On this sub-
ject my mother took an early stand with her characteristic de-
cisiveness. One afternoon my parents were invited out of
town for a little visit. The absorbing topic of the host's
family proved to be slate-writing. They declared that my
mother had a highly magnetic temperament, and all the
qualifications for successful mediumship, and that if she
would consent to be guided by invisible forces, wonderful
messages might come through the slate awaiting her. Where-
upon she lifted up both her hands, declared that God had
given her these members for her individual use, and never
would she yield them to any spirit, real or alleged.

One evening a man under the influence of liquor attempted
to drive across a sandbar in Pleasant Lake near our house.
The runner of his sleigh struck the projecting root of a tree,
he was thrown out, and was found the next morning lifeless
from exposure. Shortly, some one remarked that as the man
had died in full health his body would be a good subject for
dissection. The remark grew into a rumor which reached the
ears of kinsmen, who finally drove twelve miles westward to
consult at Niles a clairvoyant medium. She pronounced the
rumor true, declared circumstantially that the body had been
sold to medical students in Chicago, and even named the men
engaged in the dishonorable transaction. Still unconvinced,
the kinsmen drove a dozen miles eastward to Cassopolis to
consult another medium, who told substantially the same
story. Whereupon, village excitement grew, until the grave
was opened, and the body was found lying in repose.

I was taught by my parents to let spiritualistic experiments
severely alone. At one time, as a guest to hear music by a
pupil of Rossini, I found myself unexpectedly in the house of

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 163

a medium. I was invited to join the circle for communica-
tions. I replied,

" Pardon me, I must decline to take part, but do not allow
me to disturb the current of the evening. I will sit in the
comer of the sofa and look on."

But the hostess was either too courteous to permit anything
to the exclusion of a guest, or afraid of the non-sympathetic
element present. My mission seemed to be the blocking of
this seance.

XL FATHERHOOD

Delia and I are driving alone, —

Driving, driving;
Sleepily jogs the reliable roan,
And over the meadows the blossoms are blown,
And the song of the thrush finds an echoing tone,

Shriving,
Shriving my soul to be clear as her own.
Delia and I are moving content. . . .

— George Herbert Clarke.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Silver were never quite content without
the coveted voice of a child in their home. And one day
Mr. Silver announced the advent of a daughter. No child
was ever accorded a sweeter and tenderer welcome, and she
grew up to discover beyond the peradventure of a doubt that
life is a thousand times worth living. Her father was gra-
ciously pleased that heaven had sent a girl, and she came to
be glad likewise. We know the happiness that results when
the divine life flows into the spiritual organism of a woman.
We cannot know by experience the kind of happiness that
results when the divine life flows into the spiritual organism
of a man. Never wish to exchange the known for the un-
known.

Mr. Silver's rapturous letter a month after the child came
is extant; and no one will deny him the possession of a cre-
ative imagination, when one reads the things he thinks he
sees prophetically in the small face. After expending a hun-
dred words or thereabouts on the newly-arrived maiden, he
employs a similar space in an admirable tribute to his wife.
He loved her name: hence the child was called Ednah; and
in his most gracious moments he called her Edification.

164 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Mr. and Mrs. Silver were conducting their first experiment
in parental training. The childish requirement, par excel-
lence, in those days, was Obedience. It ranked high and
was written in large letters. No loitering delay, no dilatory
acquiescence, no procrastinating fulfillment. Some day the
child must face the world for herself; and this preparatory
discipline would strengthen the fibre and brace the spirit.

This serious parental training on the part of Mr. and Mrs.
Silver did not deprive the child of freedom, but tended
toward self-control, as the following incident will show. In
the eastern chamber, which was her playroom, she discovered
some magazines on a high shelf in a closet. She succeeded
in climbing within reach, and read of graveyards, ghosts,
and clanking chains. As a result, fear of the dark loomed
up as a horrid monster; but she proceeded to take the out-
works of the enemy with a soliloquy:

" Now, Ednah Silver, you know there are no such things
as ghosts, and you are to show that you know it by going alone
over and over again through the darkest rooms in this house."

The immediate campaign was entirely successful, but many
months later she awoke, and saw a spectre in white standing
by the window. Plainly, the best way to exorcise a ghost is
to investigate him; and he proved to be a piece of hanging
drapery illumined by the moon. Victory for all time was
now complete, won without parental knowledge.

Aside from school efforts at advancement, the adult com-
panionship at home was unconsciously stimulating. One day
she and her father were sitting in the orchard when some fruit
detached by a passing breeze furnished him the chance for a
bit of philosophy.

"Did you see that apple fall? What made it fall? Sir
Isaac Newton says it is the attraction of gravitation; but that
does not explain it. What is gravitation? It is the pulling
power which a big ball like the earth has over a little ball like
the apple. But that does not really answer the question. My
child, I will tell you what drew that apple to the ground: it
was the power of God." On another day she began:

"Father, I do not see how God could live forever, and
ever, and ever, in the past, with nobody to make Him."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 165

" My child, I do not want to know."

It was the best possible answer to a question running into
infinity, and wholly beyond the province of the finite mind.
And the answer was efficacious. If her big, wise father was
content not to know, so was she. But new questions came up.
One day she heard the metaphysical statement that "there
can be no sound unless there is an ear to hear it," and she
fought it with all the energy of her childish nature.

" Oh, Father, how perfectly absurd ! Here is an avalanche
weighing a thousand tons which comes tumbling down into
the valley. If there are no ears about, then all is as still as
death; but if there is one small mosquito in the neighborhood
there is a noise." But Mr. Silver stood manfully by his guns.

His instruction was by no means addressed primarily to
the mind. He held the key to children's hearts, and found
ready entrance to hers. His simple, cordial talks regarding
the Bible diffused a warmth in the atmosphere that a child
could not help loving.

Rev. Charles Evans, a Baptist, enriched Edwardsburg life,
and his children were the little Ednah's playmates. They
sprang from three continents, and an island. Four were
born in Sumatra, one at the Cape of Good Hope, four in
England, and two in America. This fact was published years
ago in the Boston Evening Transcript, when one of his sons,
Thomas, was leader of the singing at the Sunday-School
Teachers' meetings at Tremont Temple, The family is inter-
esting.

Charles Evans, born in Bristol, England, in 1791, studied
for the ministry in the Stokescroft Baptist College, and was
ordained. At twenty-seven, he married Miss Martha Scriven,
a highly educated maiden of twenty-one, who left a devoted
and loving home to share the dangerous vicissitudes of Asi-
atic missionary life. They sailed December 24, 1819, from
Gravesend; studied the Malay language, aided religious ser-
vices, and ministered to sick sailors en route; received during
their five weeks at St. Helena many courtesies from the Rev.
Mr. Vernon, chaplain of the Station; and visited Longwood,
where they saw the greatest of captives, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Their entire voyage covered five months and a half, dropping

166 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

anchor on June 9, 1820, at Beencoolen (Benkulen) Roads,
Sumatra. When we read Richard Burton, who had tested
his missionary nerve by founding a station a bit earlier among
the strange "lettered cannibals" called Bataks, we realize
that the Evans wedding journey was a serious-minded affair.
Their first chapter of Oriental life was made sunny by a very
kind welcome from the British Governor, Sir Thomas Stam-
ford Raffles of Beencoolen. Himself a standard historian
of Java and the Malays, he appointed Mr. Evans later to make
extensive research of people and language in the Manangkar-
ban country.

In the meantime, Mr. Evans had settled his family perma-
nently under the Dutch flag at Padang. Years went on.
Severe obstacles to his mission work presented themselves:
the Malay mind was not receptive of Christianity; the Mo-
hammedan religion was strongly entrenched; the Koran was
jealous of the Bible; the local government was obstructive;
the Home Board was overconfident of results from its mission-
aries, and Mr. Evans was conscientiously candid in reporting
the limits of his harvest. Mrs. Evans had established a
highly successful school at Padang for the daughters of
European residents. But the tropical climate was hostile
to the Evans household. Return to England was contemplated
after years of heroic effort. A great-hearted mercantile friend
Captain Edward Rogers, in command of the good ship
Padang, offered to transport the Evans family free of charge
to England. They sailed reluctantly, after seven years' ab-
sence.

Finally reaching Edwardsburg, after a sojourn in England,
the Evanses exchanged amenities with other churches, estab-
lished a social home centre, and were well beloved beyond
their own fold. The friendship between little Susan Evans
and little Ednah Silver, begun here, was continued in Brook-
lyn and New York, and further continued through repeated
visits to her, as Mrs. Joseph B. Hoyt, at her beautiful home
on Noroton Hill, Stamford, Conn. She asked much about my
faith, and declared that her theology had softened with the
years. She enjoyed my confirmation of her conviction that
her sister Edwina really did see angels, and a glorious spirit-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 167

ual Hght, at her death. We talked about the beautiful inner
meaning of Bible parables. In 1909 I visited the Judson
Memorial Church in Washington Square, New York. Here
I saw two additions placed there by my former Michigan
playmate, Susan Evans Hoyt: a memorial window by John
La Farge, in honor of Rev. and Mrs. Charles Evans, mis-
sionaries to Sumatra in 1819-1826; also a St. Gaudens bap-
tistry adorned with beautiful floating angels, in honor of
Mr. Joseph B. Hoyt, deceased.

Mr. Silver returned from his eastern trips bearing juvenile
gifts for his only child. At one time he brought a mechanical
toy which presented on a revolving disc a series of pictures
of horses in various stages of advance movement past a post.
Seen through a slot, the spectator's persistence of vision en-
sured the effect of horses in rapid flight. This toy was the
forerunner of the modern cinematograph which reaches many
million people daily in moving picture shows.

The Silvers furnished home pets: Watch, the shaggy New-
foundland, that ran with exuberant joy to meet his little
mistress; Jesse, the canary, a songster of famous trills and
roulades, that used to carry on extensive dialogues with her.
When she went away for a year he began in vain his morning
conversation — the beloved voice did not reply. It will be
remembered that Homer's Odysseus had a famous hunting
dog, Argos, that recognized him after twenty years' absence.
The difference is this: the Ithacan dog died of joy at his
master's return; the Michigan canary died of grief at his
mistress' absence. Kate, the chestnut mare, trotted many a
mile over Beardsley's Prairie, carrying the Silver family in
a light buggy with a collapsible top. One day, on passing
a luxurious mansion, this conversation opened:

" Father, see that beautiful great house ; how happy the
people must be that live there!"

" My child, do you see the plain, small building yonder?
I know the people in both, and those in the little house are
quite as happy as those in the big one."

Years later, entering his study, she seized a leisure moment
to expatiate on a sumptuous wedding of international inter-
est; the press contained columns devoted to gorgeous gifts

168 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

and gowns. Mr. Silver listened for three minutes ; then, with
an unconscious bit of indirect prophecy justified by results,
he said:

"All this is of no account whatever; there are only two
things that count: Is he a fine man, and do they love each
other? " Whereupon, he plunged back into his dear world
of theology.

Years later, he related an incident bearing on commercial
morality. Entering a Third Avenue furniture store in New
York where business was conducted on the usual paper cur-
rency basis, he found the proprietor rubbing his hands with
glee over an unexpected profit. It was during the Civil War,
and a woman from the remote rural regions had just pur-
chased a sofa for twenty dollars, giving in payment a gold
piece for that amount. She was content at receiving no
change, being unaware of the enormous premium on the
precious metal. Gold had not yet reached 285, but the
merchant had received and retained at least twice the amount
he himself had stipulated; and in Mr. Silver's eyes the extra
margin Avas pure theft. He himself had been tested. When
in Michigan he sold a large amount of land to an ambitious
young man, although he strongly advised the transfer of
fewer acres. The purchaser, sanguine and ardent, finally
came to grief financially, and was quite in Mr. Silver's power,
but the latter extended his hand, and helped the debtor to
his feet.

But life is not all ethics. You should visit our cellar at
Phoenix Cottage, Michigan, and see the shallow parallel bins
one above another. Here lies the hand-picked fruit: Rhode
Island greenings, Bell flowers, russets, striped apples of spicy
flavor; and golden pippins which, green now, would mellow
in ripening, and would turn yellow, thereby justifying their
name.

Let us enter the living room of Phoenix Cottage in winter
time. Ablaze in the generous fireplace, hickory wood sends
out cheer; on the hearth, perforated apples exude delicious
juice; above the brass andirons, corn is popping; on the
table are nuts from the attic — the shagbark hickory, the
black walnut, chestnut, hazelnut, butternut; lastly, the beech-

^1

_5 oi

4Q»

Rev. George Field

Mrs. Susan M. H. Dow

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 169

nut. Hear Rev. John Worcester on the symbolism of the
beech, not given verbatim, from his Plants of the Bible, pp.
63, 64.

Its cleanliness, seen in the smooth bark and polished leaves,
suggests a principle of purity; the oil of its fruit signifies that
its works are works of love; the fact of the nuts growing in
pairs indicates that they relate to marriage; and represents
a knowledge of the duty of singleness in marriage; the warm
lining of the bur suggests a comfortable home; the bur's
prickly exterior suggests the instinct of protection around
one's marriage life; and the very sharpness of the beechnut's
angles sets forth the perfect definiteness of the laws of single-
ness in the conjugial relations.

Our favorite climbing vine was the honeysuckle, which
offered slender cups of nectar to the humming birds as it
climbed the veranda pillar in a graceful spiral, and gave
its little tribute of perfume to the robins nesting at the top
under the eaves, songsters which instinctively knew their
home, and place of abode, after the manner of the blessed
angels {Divine Love and Wisdom, No. 134).

Wordsworth praises the skylark as an ethereal minstrel;
he calls the green linnet a brother of the dancing leaves, and
he says to the cuckoo, " Thrice welcome, darling of the
Spring." Keats, in an exquisite classic, addresses the night-
ingale as a " light winged Dryad of the trees." Shelley
hails the skylark as a blithe spirit, and an embodied joy;
James Hogg addresses it as a musical cherub, and an emblem
of happiness, blithesome and cumberless. No transcendent
genius writes rapturous lyrics to the robin and his mate. To
some they are only a prosaic Darby and Joan; but their pres-
ence happily is not too good for daily food, and Mrs. Silver
helped them out with her own music.

When we observe the current songs at the lighter theatres,
and recall Mrs. Silver's sweet voice in old-fashioned ballads,
we may say with Shakespeare:

170 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night;
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.

In reviewing Michigan life, more emphasis should be
given to Jabez Fox, one of a group of Marshall New Church-
men. He was frankly cordial in spirit, clear of thought, and
generous in labor, serving long years in the ministry.

A much valued neighbor just across the state line in Elk-
hart, Indiana, was Dr. Havilah Beardsley (1795-1856), to
whom his New-Church library was one of his dearest treas-
ures. His wife, Rachel Calhoun, was kinsman to the South
Carolina statesman. She was not only generously hospitable
to friends, but had the rare and big-hearted gift of putting
herself sympathetically in the place of those less favorably
circumstanced than herself. She and her husband learned
of our faith through Rev. George Field's lectures; and Mrs.
W. S. Howland of Denver writes me:

" My grandfather accepted the Doctrines at once; he seemed
to be ready to receive them, and my grandmother also. They
knew they were the truth right away; they had no doubt
about it!"

Mrs. Josiah (Susan M. H.) Dorr, long a member of the
Boston Society, contributed, with her husband, a valuable
element in Michigan New-Church life. Their opulent home
with surrounding grounds in the suburbs of Detroit was a
place for religious gatherings, a centre for social life, and
a warm shelter for Rev. George Field's little children when
suddenly made motherless.

A pleasure journey of a thousand miles was made by the
Silver household in 1851 in a covered carriage with seats
for four, drawn by a pair of dappled grays eight years old
— well-matched, well-broken, fairly spirited. They were
managed by Mr. Silver, with his one hand, after this wise:
the reins a little taut formed a loop caught in a strong hook
at the back of the seat, and on them were fastened leather
knobs in pairs, so that he could slip his hand rapidly for-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 171

ward, and get a good purchase in case of emergency. He
knew the sandy roads; and he cut across with horses and
carriage by boat from Cleveland to Buffalo. Resuming
wheels, the drive was delightful in May and June through
northern New York, and over the Green Mountains of Ver-
mont. The horses danced gaily over the bridge at Concord,
New Hampshire; the return was made by cars. This journey
was preparatory to a permanent home in the east.

Three events of vital significance in Mr. Silver's life had
occurred during his twenty-two years in Michigan:

I. His discovery of the New Church in 1839 through
Edwin Burnham at Detroit. This both illuminated and en-
larged his horizon, adding a deeper meaning to life.

H. His baptism in 1844 by Rev. George Field. This
rebaptism seemed to him right, because administered with
the idea, in the mind of both officiating clergyman and candi-
date, of One God in One Person; the atonement being the
reconciliation of man with God.

HI. Prominent in the Michigan life was his ordination at
the hands of the Rev. Thomas Worcester at the Philadelphia
Convention of 1849. Mr. Silver was fifty-two. Behind him
lay nearly ten years of enthusiastic missionary lay teaching;
before him lay thirty-two years of joyful labor in the Master's
vineyard under the new consecration.

XII. CONTOOCOOK, NEW HAMPSHIRE

What I have done, my safety urg'd me to.

— Henry IV, First Part, v. 5.

Unexpected stress of ill health on the part of Mr. Silver,
terminated his residence in Michigan, and sent him back to
his native air. He settled near his old Hopkinton home at
Contoocook, the village with the Indian name. The interest
in the New Church which he aroused in 1851 was still
alive in 1853. Circumstances favored the movement dear
to Mr. Silver's heart. A Universalist Church edifice erected
in 1837, was still sturdy in fibre, strong-timbered, well-
constructed, and unoccupied. It was easily transferable
to the New Church. Here, after western itinerary missionary

172 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

work was his first fixed parish with its happy privileges. Hav-
ing the nature that takes home-root, he furnished a social
centre for his flock by designing and erecting a dwelling
house for his family — a structure with four equal gables
surmounted by a miniature reproduction for a cupola.

To his Sunday services came the village doctor, the village
lawyer, the village postmaster, the village merchant. School-
teachers abounded, but the bulk of his congregation was rural.

The farmers for miles around harnessed their teams, stowed
the entire family in the vehicles, and drove to church, shelter-
ing their horses in the capacious shed room. They brought
luncheon and provender for the noon hour feeling that two
religious services were but an adequate return for their
long drive.

Precisely while Mr. Silver was at Contoocook, Kingsley
was preaching to illiterate toilers in the field. The critical
capacity of his rustic hearers in Old Hampshire I cannot
estimate; but I can assure you that the New Hampshire
farmers are apt to be parishioners whom the clergyman
must equip himself to meet adequately. They had a keen,
shrewd humor which gave them a sense of proportion, and
made them quick to detect incongruities; and their very sim-
plicity of character made them clear-sighted.

Mr. Silver was indebted to Contoocook for his five years'
practice in pulpit preaching without notes. He found char-
acter-study in his parish, which, like all parishes, is a world
in miniature, with as many aspects of temperament, disposi-
tion, tastes, and capacities, as the number of people in his
pews: it was a vastly interesting study in human nature, and
an admirable opportunity for him to practise adaptability.
He loved them, and made warm friends.

Mr. Silver had been a country lad, and he and the grown
country lads in the pews knew the habits of plants as well
as the haunts and ways of bird, reptile, fish and small land
animals, and he often brought them into his sermon for illus-
tration. For example:

"Our faults, when quiescent, are like snakes in their holes;
while hidden, we are safe from immediate danger. Tempta-
tion brings them out; now is the time to strike. One blow

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 173

will only "scotch " them, wounding tliem more or less super-
ficially; repeated blows will be requisite to disable them
hopelessly. Watch your chance, strike vigorously, when they
put out their heads! "

Children sometimes caught the tenor of his discourse. One
Sunday the small boys of Mr. Charles Gould heard a symbolic
sermon on the children that mocked the good prophet Elisha,
and of their subsequent destruction by the bears. Mr. and
Mrs. Gould made no comment on the sermon within hearing
of the little folk; but the latter were in the nursery the next
day when matters waxed warm between them. The younger
raised his hand to strike, whereupon the other exclaimed:
"Take care, take care, little brother, that's the bear prin-
ciple."

A letter lying before me from Contoocook dated Novem-
ber 4th, 1853, speaks of Mr. Silver's increasing audiences:
"There are occasionally three hundred present, the average
number being about two hundred." And under date of Feb-
ruary 14th, 1854, Mr. Silver's first New-Church lecture at
Warner is mentioned, with an audience approximating five
hundred. The services were aided by the Contoocook choir.

Church music was a vital feature of divine worship, and
a great social resource of parochial life. Choir rehearsals
were held at scattered homes, the music-loving farmer gladly
opening his doors. In winter the singers sped on runners
to the happy music of sleigh bells. The leader, Mr. Henry
Clemons, who cooperated cordially with Mr. Silver's efforts,
had a fine tenor voice, an enthusiastic temperament, and long-
practised skill in teaching musical notation by blackboard.
He carried to the rehearsals for accompaniment a large lap
melodeon constructed like an accordion. The well-filled
choir gallery traversed the entire width of the church build-
ing, girls in white raiment abounded, and divine service was
enriched by the acompaniment of a portable pipe organ, vio-
lins, a bass viol and an ophicleide.

Following the formation of the legal society to look after
the material interests of the church, came, on May 24, 1857,
the institution of The Contoocook Society of the New Jeru-
salem over which the Rev. Thomas Worcester of Boston

174 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

impressively presided. Among the charter members were
Alonzo and Erastus E. Currier, who had served six years
in the town militia (the institution dating from 1792), and
who were now tillers of the soil; and who with their wives
and growing families gradually added nine to the congre-
gation. Mr. and Mrs, Charles Gould also enriched our num-
bers by nine. He had been much engaged in teaching, and
brought a pedagogue's analytical mind to the study of Swed-
enborg; and, loving mother earth, he retained the family
estate on which he was born. The name Hardy is pleasantly
recalled. Mr. and Mrs. Asa Kimball imparted their zeal
for the parish welfare to their six adult children. The latter
group migrated to California, where Warren C. and Frank
A. Kimball purchased in 1868 the Ranch de la Nacion, con-
taining forty-two square miles of land in San Diego, with six
miles of water frontage on the harbor, and laid out National
City in 1869.

Fourteen Morrills, in the combined households of Jona-
than M., Jacob M., and George W., made Mr. Silver glad
that they had been born; and Mrs. Elizabeth C. Dean and
her husband brought to us her already ripening faith in the
New Church. Walter Scott Davis was the son of Captain
Nathaniel Davis, and the grandson of Gen. Aquila Davis — a
worthy ancestry. In early manhood, after academic train-
ing, a teacher, he removed later from Warner, N. H., to
Contoocook, where he purchased extensive water power, en-
tered largely into manufacturing, was the father of valuable
industrial inventions, and served as state senator in 1885, and
representative in 1878. He identified himself strongly with
the Contoocook Society, and served it loyally as lay reader
during pulpit vacancies. He and Miss Dolly Jones were
parties at a double wedding solemnized by Mr. Silver on
May 3, 1857.

To convert a critical man of the world at forty-six — a
man completely detached from religious organizations — to
convert him into a devoted churchgoer is so infrequent a
pulpit experience that space shall be accorded it in this nar-
rative.

Captain Paul Rolfe George of Contoocook, had, in 1853,

■^^

Printed by permission of Mrs. Lord from

Life and Times in Hopkinton, New Hampshire'

by the late C. C. Lord

Printed by permission of Mrs. Lord

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 175

already sifted every known creed and had found it wanting.
OccasionaHy in driving about the country on a Sunday he
dropped into a church; and as he was the village magnate
whose identity was easily recognized, the officiating clergy-
man would sometimes dexterously shift the tenor of his dis-
course, and preach a sermon to the unconverted.

Reaching a mark through the pathway of the soul is not
as simple an activity as direct military target practice; the
pulpit shot always failed to reach effectively the man dis-
tinguished for social tact in his exact and careful study of
human nature.

One day Captain George's attention was arrested by a
placard on the wall of the Contoocook postoffice kept by
Isaac D. Merrill. Here he learned that the Rev. Abiel Silver
was to present the teachings of the New Church, and he at
once exclaimed:

" Here is a new-fangled religion, I will go."
And on quitting the church after service he said to a friend,
" I like that man, he gives me a peg to hang my hat on."
And for the next five years the sun in its daily appearance
was not more trustworthy than he in his weekly appearance
in his pew when not absent from town. At this early time he
lived with a brother-in-law, and brought to Sunday morning
services his three golden-haired nephews — Roger, Hamilton
and Frank Perkins — and if they were a bit restless he
touched them on the shoulder, pointed to the pulpit, and, with-
out fairly removing his eyes from the minister, eagerly held
the thread of the discourse while enforcing discipline.

The eldest of these nephews, of whom Mr. George was
very proud, we seldom saw. He was an ensign at Annapolis,
and was sent later on the Cyane to look after Gen. Walker;
to Paraguay to chastise Dictator Lopez; took part on the
Release in the coveted Mediterranean cruise; and entertained
us with accounts of his experience on the Sumpter down the
west coast of Africa to suppress the slave trade. Winning
promotion, he was on the Chickasaw under Farragut in Mo-
bile Bay in August, 1864; he was subsequently known as
Commodore George H. Perkins, to whose memory a bronze
tablet has been unveiled at the Annapolis Naval Academy,

176 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

the cords of the concealing flag being drawn by his daughter,
Mrs. Larz Anderson.

Captain George utilized his younger nephews for ethical
purposes in furtherance of his own soul. He told us that
during his army life in the Mexican War he had contracted
the habit of using too strong language; and now he made
an arrangement with the boys whereby they were to watch
him, and at each offence they were to say, "Skip the hard
words, Captain"; and for each rebuke he would pay them
one cent. Occasionally he would report progress to his min-
ister, saying, that although the lads at first received a con-
siderable revenue, it was diminishing, and gave quite hand-
some promise of reaching zero.

Mr. George was quick to respond to vivid and unexpected
revelations of character. Coming upon a young housebuilder
whom he knew, at the moment after his fall from a staging,
thereby breaking his leg, the latter's first exclamation was,
" Oh, what will become of my dependent father! " Where-
upon, Mr. George instantly replied,

"Don't worry, I will gladly be responsible for his care
and support for six months."

But Mr. George was to attain greater heights under Mr.
Silver's preaching in a growing sensitiveness as to standards
of life, as we shall see a bit later in his dealing with his
workmen. He purchased the handsome homestead of his
brother-in-law, Hamilton Eliot Perkins, who, a Harvard Law
School graduate, removed to Concord, N. H., to establish
an office; Mr, George's new possession consisted of fertile
alluvial land on the banks of the Contoocook River, which
gave the present owner an opportunity to practise scientific
farming and to emulate the agricultural efforts of his neigh-
bors by his own superior crops. One year he secured New-
Church workmen to cut his grain, and carefully stipulated
in advance the exact price for the labor. The grain had been
beaten down and tangled by wind and rain, and proved a
much severer task than either party had anticipated, but the
reapers were prepared to accept silently the situation, as one
of the mutations of life.

They found themselves summoned to their employer's

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 177

library. Mr. George dearly loved a dramatic situation, and
here was one. On his desk lay two unequal piles of money,
and he opened the interview in the colloquial language which
befitted the occasion, and with great geniality.

" Your job finished? "

" It is, sir."

" Pretty tough one?"

" Pretty tough."

" Good deal worse than you expected ; the wheat was lodged
quite badly? "

" That is true."

" But," and here his voice assumed a Wall Street tone,.
"we agreed beforehand on the price? "

"Yes, sir."

" Business is business, and a bargain is a bargain? "

" Yes, sir."

At this point his manner suddenly softened, and, pointing
alternately to the smaller and to the larger pile of money
on his desk, he said:

"That is the amount on which we originally agreed; this
is what the labor is really worth; that is the old way; this
is the new. I am going to give you the larger amount; you
are to receive New-Church pay."

I have never heard Mr. George make any illusion to this
incident; but I have more than once heard the workmen
relate it with great gusto.

Early in 1855, Capt. George said to Mr. Silver:

" I am going to marry Miss Caroline Livingston of Lowell
in March, and, after a trip abroad, shall settle down in Con-
toocook and make myself the best New Churchman that I
know how. But I shall never join the Church, because it
would not be good for the Church."

And he quite lived up to his assertion. Mrs. George stood
by his side in her general attitude toward matters, loving
his friends to the end, sharing his church attendance, con-
tinuing his hospitalities during the forty years she survived
him. ^I saw her last in 1902. At her death she left $1000
to the Contoocook New Church.

Red letter days indeed for Contoocook were those of the

178 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Maine and New Hampshire Association in August, 1861. To
a detached little society, it was a rare privilege to extend
hospitality to fifty visitors, including seven clergymen. Rev.
George H. Marston filled well the role of chief host. Rev.
Samuel F. Dike, presiding minister of the Association, gave
a never-to-be-forgotten sermon on the pool of Bethesda. An
enthusiast from his Bath Society declared, in comment, that
he had only given a fair example of his powers; but Captain
George demurred :

" No man could rise to that height fifty-two Sundays in a
year."

Mr. Edwin Gould of Montreal, an exact and conscientious
student in the field of religious thought, with large outlying
possessions in the domain of literature and music, received
on this occasion from the presiding minister the license to
preach, as the preparatory step to a long and devoted pastor-
ate. He still lives in his able son. Rev. E. M. Lawrence
Gould. Mr. George S. Hilton, whose church work in Mere-
dith, N. H., gave good promise, received the same official
sanction from Mr. Dike. Rev. Charles Dunham, embarked
in a life-voyage of useful ministerial service, enriched the
occasion by a sermon; and Mr. Edwin Hale Abbot, then a
tutor at Harvard, gave a lecture on "Love of Country" which
was full of patriotism and talent. Mr. Frank Sewall of Bath
brought a devotional and consecrated spirit, the forerunner
of an unusually rich and varied contribution to the Church,
both in and out of the pulpit. Rev. William B. Hayden of
Portland, Maine, brought the point of view embracing a broad
horizon of interests, secular and spiritual; and Rev. Richard
Norman Foster, a man of ability, brought an independent
mind a little wary of narrow ecclesiastical walls. Rev. John
C. Ager, Professor in the Urbana University of Ohio, was
warmly welcomed among old friends of his boyhood; and
Rev. Abiel Silver, now of New York, was very happy over
the promising condition of his little flock, and their excel-
lent privileges on this occasion for enlarging their New-
Church acquaintanceship. Captain and Mrs. George har-
bored guests generously in their spacious home, and gave
their grounds for a lawn party. He in the meantime was

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 179

studying the types of character around him, and said later:

"Mr. Silver, from my observation, the New Church is
made up of two classes of people — studious, thinking people,
like Mr. Hayden and Mr. Edwin Abbot, and, on the other
hand, simple-hearted folk in the good of life; and the clergy-
man goes up and down, up and down, trying to fill the gap."

Captain George had viewed the world at various angles,
from frontier life at the scarcely known upper Mississippi,
to the office of quartermaster in the Mexican War under
Colonel Caleb Gushing, with whom he established an intimate
and lifelong companionship. He had seen all sorts and condi-
tions of men, and loved my father for his genuineness and
frankness.

When my father was called to the New York pulpit Captain
George was as proud of him as if he were his favorite son.
In those early sixties he and his wife habitually spent their
winters there.

He delighted in the theatre and often invited us. One
evening he read aloud to us The Lady of Lyons, and it was
a vastly finer rendering than the Wallack company could give
in its supreme moments. No member of that cast had a soul
with so many vibratory chords, and he could play them all.
The last night I ever saw him, our theatre party broke up
into little groups, in returning to the hotel, and as he fell
to my share, he said:

" Miss Silver, your father is getting to be an old man, and
some day he will leave you; and I want to say now that the
little blue room in our home is yours for life."

But although ten years younger, his hold on life did not
compare with that of my father, who outlived him seventeen
years. He grew to be a bit apprehensive about death; he
felt that he discovered the higher ideals late in life. And
heaven was kind to him, and largely veiled from him the
coming of the angel of the resurrection. He was stricken
at his Contoocook home on a Sunday morning in 1864, and
was unconscious most of the few remaining days. At his
decease, Mr. Silver came on to address a trainload of hearers
from Concord, New Hampshire, as he paid the last warm
tribute over the clay tenement that had housed a very unusual
occupant.

180 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

A notable event in Mr. Silver's five years' ministry at
Contoocook was the discovery, through his preaching in the
New Church, of Mr. John Ager, who later became a most
valuable factor both as educational instructor and preacher.
He accepted the new spiritual message after intelligent in-
vestigation, and serious-hearted aim. One of his pedagogi-
cal lectures upon amusements helped to sweeten and elevate
the diversions of young people for that day. Mr. Silver
gave him a note of introduction to the faculty of Urbana
University, describing him as a young man of talent and
merit; and shortly after his arrival the authorities wrote back
fervently, "Send on a dozen more like him!" He was
ordained into the ministry in 1860, being then twenty-five.
After a three years' pastorate in Brookline, he married Miss
Newhall of Chicago; and they held their children in the
Church fold. After forty-four years in the Brooklyn, N. Y.,
pulpit, he became a successful instructor in our Theological
School at Cambridge.

Xin. WILMINGTON, DELAWARE

I push through a thicket of memories in which the thousand-fingered
branches arrestingly catch.

— Henry James's Notes of a Son and Brother.

On a winter day in 1858, Mr. Silver received a letter of
stirring import which deflected southward the current of our
lives. It was written by Mr. Daniel Lammot as representa-
tive of the Society of the New Jerusalem at Wilmington,
Delaware, asking the recipient to make a tentative visit of
two or three weeks, with a view to permanent establishment
in its pulpit. He went, he saw, and the affirmative attitude
of mind in which he returned found expression later in an
acceptance.

As shepherd of his New Hampshire flock, Mr. Silver
preached his farewell sermon on April 4th, 1858. A nucleus
among them had, to a degree, instructed themselves in mat-
ters spiritual by Bible study, and by the repeated purchase
and reading of Swedenborg's works. The Society has had
to struggle against the increasing city-ward drift of rural

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 181

populations everywhere, and the consequent drainage of vi-
tality. The Contoocook parishioners gave Mr. Silver a warm
place in their hearts. His picture etched by the sun which
you may see in the church building is not more real than
his image incised on their memory by a higher and subtler
instrumentality.

Migrating southward, we knew little about Delaware, ex-
cept that aristocratically it was named for a lord, and demo-
cratically it led the historic procession of Thirteen Colonies
by its ratification of the Federal Constitution — little Dela-
ware at the head, little Rhode Island in the rear. Arrived
at Wilmington, Mr. Lammot and two of his sons met us at
the station, Mrs. Lammot greeted us demonstratively as she
descended her steps to receive us as guests at her home, and
Miss Lammot, lingering within the walls, extended to us a
welcome less impetuous but equally genuine. We were soon
installed in our new home near the Brandywine River — a
stream cheerfully picturesque in its wooded banks, and darkly
historic as the scene where Washington had been defeated,
and Lafayette had received a wound.

The institution of slavery still lingered in Delaware, giving
a distinct color to life, and here Mr. Silver counted among
his parishioners the only slaveholder he ever had — Mrs.
George Reade Riddle, wife of a United States senator. She
often described to us life on her Virginia plantation. If a
black toe was injured, " Missus " was sent for to suggest re-
lief; if death threatened, "Missus" was sent for to pray; she
was called upon to be physician and chaplain. War and
emancipation swept her plantation life out of existence later,
but she retained in her city home her house servants whom
she kindly sheltered and cared for long after their capacity
for service had ceased. Her house was luxurious, its viands
served in silver, and its atmosphere generously loyal to the
faith of the New Church. Her gift still on our walls is Holla-
way's 1810 engraving of one of Raphael's cartoons. When
a missionary was her guest, and she could not quite decide
whether her parting gift should be a five or a ten-dollar gold
piece, she would place the two in her pocket, and present the
one which her fingers first touched.

182 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Soon after Mr. Silver's arrival at Wilmington came the
dedication of their little blue granite church. Exteriorly,
one saw three slender parallel windows over the door. The
circular corner tower stretching upward terminated in an
elongated cone. Entering, and passing through the vestibule,
the audience room revealed itself attractively. The timbered
roof, pews, and other furnishings were of oak; three arches
of cut stone outlined three sunken recesses: for the chancel
in front, for the organ at the left, for a minister's room on
the right.

Mrs. Alfred du Pont was most fittingly the godmother of
the Wilmington Society of the New Jerusalem, as the eldest
daughter of the man so often called the Father of the New
Church in Delaware. As Margaretta Elizabeth Lammot, she
married at the age of sixteen Alfred Victor Philadelphus
du Pont, aged twenty-six, and removed from Philadelphia to
Delaware. The next year, 1825, she revisited her native city
to attend the famous Lafayette Ball, dancing with her hus-
band's cousin, Francis du Pont, aged twenty-two, who later
became rear-admiral in the United States Navy.

The bride, Margaretta Elizabeth Lammot du Pont, was
very welcome into the family with which she had allied her-
self. Her father-in-law, Irenee du Pont, entered warmly into
plans for a gift to the young people — a home on the Brandy-
wine River a few miles from Wilmington to be called
Nemours, which was a name with ancestral associations. The
new house was of stone, having attractive grounds, with trees
and blossoming shrubs without, and spacious rooms within.
Here Lafayette came for social purposes, he and Irenee du
Pont having been old comrades in the French National Guard.
Here, seven little du Ponts, four boys and three girls, were
sent by heaven to enrich the home life. Here for thirty-one
years Mrs. Alfred du Pont chiefly represented the New Church
until, in 1855, her father made Wilmington his home.

Allow me to introduce the readers to Nemours, the home
in 1858 of Mrs. Alfred du Pont, the Lady Bountiful of the
New Church. On entering directly from the veranda to the
very spacious hall, nearly square in size, we see a piano,
where our hostess often plays for dancing, to the edification

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 183

of the young people drawn from the eight Episcopalian du
Pont families on the Brandywine.

At the right of the hall lies the library containing three
thousand volumes in nine languages, especially French, in
which latter Mrs. du Pont revels, as she reads that language
with the same ease as her native tongue. She reads home
and foreign Reviews, buys new publications, peruses Sweden-
borg and observes current conditions, saying, " One must
know the world if one is to meet it."

Mrs. Mary Augusta Hounsfield was the second daughter of
Daniel Lammot. One of the happy remembrances of her child-
hood was the dedication of the Temple of the New Jerusalem
in the Quaker City; and she learned to appreciate its munifi-
cent donor, William Schlatter, and to form an intimate and
lifelong friendship with his daughter Julia, who became Mrs.
Theophilus Chandler of Brookline, Massachusetts.

The Hounsfield home was on Delaware Avenue, in an
attractive house of wood with a bit that was rural in front —
trees, shrubbery and flowers. " Sheltering Arms " was the
name suggested by some one for this homestead, where
reigned hospitality for friends, kindliness to the neighbor
in trouble, motherliness to the orphan children of her brother,
Ferdinand Lammot, and devotion to her own.

Eleanora, third daughter of Daniel Lammot, married
in 1844 Edward W. Gilpin. Their home, standing beside
that of Mrs. Hounsfield, also prepossessed you in advance by
its graceful trees, and pleasant verdure bright with flowers,
enlivening the enclosure in front. Her wifely pride was
gratified by the advance of her husband from the position
of lawyer to that of attorney-general, and from that of at-
torney-general to that of chief justice of the state of Delaware.
Her motherly instincts were gratified by the advent of two
little daughters, Meta and Paulina. Her love of our beauti-
ful faith was gratified by witnessing the reception by her
husband of the New-Church teachings.

The successive departure of Mr. Lammot's children south-
ward from Philadelphia began in 1824; and he arrived in
"Wilmington in 1855, rich in descendants: Margaretta Lam-
mot du Pont and her seven children; Mary Lammot Houns-

184 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

field and her two children; Eleanora Lammot Gilpin and
her two children; and the orphan children of Ferdinand Lam-
mot. But the multiplication did not end here. Mr. Lammot
himself, after the translation to the other world of his wife,
Susannah Beck, married, in 1819, Anna Smith of Philadel-
phia, who added seven children more, among whom Harry
and Alfred carried their New-Church light to California.

Mrs. Anna Smith Lammot, who captured our good will
on our arrival in Wilmington in 1858 by the warm spon-
taneity of her welcome, was a person of uncommon gifts.
Her mind was of the order of genius rather than talent, with
intuitive flashes of perception. She was wedded to the earlier
school of literature. She characterized the modem analytical
novelists as grave intruders on the sacred recesses of char-
acter. She quarreled with Thackeray, and, as his foil, used
to set up her beloved Walter Scott:

''He was a gentleman, with his high and fine reserve! He
did not place human nature on a dissecting table."

Mrs. Lammot was also conservative regarding the New
Church, and entered a rebuke for any superficial readers
among us who do not digest what we accept. She wrote early
in 1869:

" People see New-Church books, and take much for granted
that they must be on the right side; whereas the most danger-
ous are those that under the guise of New-Church doctrine
broach speculations of their own. This is wounding the
Truth in the house of its friends."

Mrs. Lammot left a volume of her o^vn ins. verses, and
her paraphrase of Psalm cxxxix shows that she was beloved
by Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred hymns. These are the
opening verses:

Lord ! Thou my inmost soul hast known

Throughout my life-long days,
Thou knowest every word I speak,

Thou seest all my ways.

Such knowledge is too wonderful,

Too high, too vast for me!
Where, from Thy Spirit shall I go?

Where, from Thy Presence flee?

Mr. Daniel Lammot

Mrs. Daniel Lammot

Mrs. Mary Lammot Homesfield

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Mrs. ElpdTiord Ltinunot Gilpin

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Mr. Dan Lammot

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Major Rnbprt La Matte

Col. William A. La Motte

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'^..'

Brigadier-General Charles Eugene La Mnlte

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 185

Dan led the second group of children born to the patriarch,
Daniel Lammot. His alert interest in the welfare of the
New Church corresponded with his alert physical activity.
He married Signorila Dolores Morguiandi, a strikingly hand-
some lady reared in South America; and around their hearth-
stone gathered attractive little Lammots, olive of complexion,
Castilian in manners, and Spanish in temperament.

Major Robert, second son of Daniel Lammot, departed
from his father's family name, and reverted to the French
spelling — La Motte. He returned during our stay in Wilm-
ington from several years' absence in California. He was
very precious to his mother's heart, and his home-coming
was heralded in advance with delight. Arriving unexpectedly
on a Sunday morning, he slipped into church just in time
for the sermon. Mr. Silver was discoursing on the Prodigal
Son. He dwelt forcibly and in detail on the wanderer's
sojourn in a far country, on his downward path, and on the
glad joy over his return to his father's house. The pulpit
was unaware of the presence of the new auditor, but the pews
knew him, and recognized the incongruity: that, on the very
threshold of his arrival, the noble absentee should be greeted
with so tragic a warning regarding Wicked Wanderers. After
the benediction came a family jubilee; and Mrs. Lammot
soon made her way to the preacher, and said with smiling
good humor, and a sparkle of fun in her eyes:

"Mr. Silver, this is my son Robert, he is not a prodigal
son, and he has not wasted his substance in riotous living."

Col. William La Motte outdistanced his brothers in Gallic
traits, with his Parisian accent, his French love of precision
and accuracy, and his instinct for the amenities of drawing-
room life. Social honors naturally fell to him. When, in
1876, Dom Pedro H, the public-spirited Emperor of Brazil,
visited many manufactories, including that of the New
Churchman, Mr. William H. Swift, Judge Wales of Wilming-
ton tendered a dinner to the royal visitors, and Col. La Motte
was one of the guests.

He did not, after the manner of Frenchmen described by
Hamerton in Around My House, attend church by proxy
through the feminine members of his household. The pulpit

186 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

can testify to his constant presence in his pew up to eighty
years of age. During the last two years of his life his
thoughts turned increasingly toward the other world. We
hope that God has given him the companionship of little
children, whom he loved devotedly while here. From the
latter circumstance, it would seem as if there were a touch
of pathos in his celibate life, but one could never detect it
in his sunny temperament.

Brigadier-General Charles Eugene La Motte, the youngest
son, quitted at twenty-one the law office he had but recently
opened, and volunteered for the Civil War, serving with en-
thusiasm in the Army of the Potomac for four years. When
promoted to a colonelcy, he modestly bore his access to the
higher position, but wrote home playfully to his mother:

" I must hasten home on a furlough before I grow round-
shouldered with the weight of my honors, and become cross-
eyed from trying to look at the eagles on both shoulders at
once! " He was brevetted on the field with the title of Briga-
dier-General, in March, 1865, for " gallant and meritorious
conduct during the war."

His Church loyalty w^as unswerving; and in later years he
revealed his spiritual soldiership in bearing incredible se-
verity of pain with the heroism of God's true children. Rob-
ert La Motte became major in the war, and William, a colonel.

Lewis P. Mercer became a New Churchman through the
instrumentality of Mr. Silver in Wilmington, and, like John
C. Ager, who was similarly drawn to our faith, he served
unremittingly in the Master's vineyard for many long years
thereafter. He wrote me in 1879:

" It fills me with emotions of gratitude and gladness as I
recall my own knowledge of your father's ministry, and my
obligations to him as my 'spiritual father.' Blessed day,
and wonderful to me the mercy of it! "

Mr. Mercer, for a year, spent three evenings a week for
religious instruction in Mr. Silver's Wilmington study, con-
tinued his investigation under the Rev. Willard H. Hinkley,
the Rev. N. C. Bumham, and in the Theological School of
the General Convention of the New Jerusalem, being or-
dained in 1872.

Rev. John C. Ager at one time in
Rev. Abiel Silver's sheepfold

Rev. Lewis T. Mercer at one time in
Rev. Abiel Silver's sheepfold

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 187

Dr. August Negendank was the man in the pews who makes
the pulpit happy, because he loved the Church more than
the minister, and was loyal to it under all circumstances; my
father used to describe him as " true-blue." He had married
in 1856 Rebecca A. Snyder of nineteen, who shared, for
more than half a century, his steadfast love and loyalty to
the faith of their adoption. She was gentle-spirited, and
capable of much home devotion. He rose to high honors as a
physician, and had wide mental interest.

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Swift were led within the gates
of the Church by Mr. Silver. Their fidelity was enduring
as granite, and people far away arose and called them
blessed. She superintended the Sunday School for many long
years. Annie La Motte and Mrs. Pyle will appear on an-
other page.

Let us take our last look at Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Lammot
during their fiftieth marriage anniversary.

" I have hardly gotten over my Golden Wedding day yet!"
she writes in 1869, " I really think it was the happiest day
of my so long a life — the fruition of all that my first wed-
ding day promised." There was a Midas-touch to this fiftieth
anniversary. Picture to yourself a procession of twelve
grandchildren approaching the venerable husband and his
frail-looking wife, each bearing a fifty-dollar gold piece —
sumptuous testimony, in material and denomination, to the
occasion. And little great-grandchildren came, bringing with
unconscious grace their fragrant offering of celestial inno-
cence.

The beautiful blue granite church which I loved in Wilm-
ington has been swept out of existence by the right of eminent
domain, and is replaced by a handsomer edifice in a finer
district, in which is a window to the memory of the three
noble daughters of the Father of the New Church in Dela-
ware. Let me give my triple tribute of love.

Margaretta Lammot du Pont represented dignity of charac-
ter, and a reserve in which her more demonstrative pen some-
times forgot itself in her letters. She was as upright as the
walls of Jerusalem. In the du Pont library of three thousand
volumes I once drew her attention to a sixteenth-century

188 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

French classic, asking her if she had read it. She replied
in the negative. It had fallen under her disapproval, and,
although it stood on a shelf on a level with her hand for sev-
eral decades, her conscience was never decoyed by her curi-
osity. Regarding the Swedish seer, she used to say: " Sweden-
borg's standpoint differs from the prevailing one; therefore
it is necesary to readjust one's mind in accepting his books."
You have met Mrs. du Pont, the Church godmother of Ne-
mours; later in this book you will meet Lady du Pont of
Goodstay and her picture.

Mary Lammot Hounsfield impressed one after this wise:
with an impetuous temperament that promptly asserted its
cordiality, with a perennial vivacity that defied the envious
years that were trying to frost her hair and rebuke its lively
inclination to curl; with brilliant black eyes sparkling with
fun or glowing with enthusiasm, with a resolute courage
which could wrest a blessing from untoward events, with a
capacity for personal loyalty as steadfast as the sun, with de-
votion to the Church that never wavered, she may be counted
as a truly valuable parishioner and friend.

Eleanora Lammot Gilpin, although reared in the same
Philadelphia environment as her sisters, developed an indi-
viduality quite her own. She was like a Claude Lorraine
picture, of which the outline is softened by an atmospheric
haze. Her character had beautiful aerial effects; and in
spite of her semi-invalidism, you went to her chamber to
gather sunshine of the soul which, in her seclusion, she irra-
diated for the benefit of her family and her friends.

XIV. NEW YORK CITY

How do our old acquaintance of this isle?

—Othello II: i. 1502.

The Moor, commenting on his old acquaintance in the isle
of Cypress, said, " I have found great love among them " ;
and we could echo it regarding our acquaintance in the island
of Manhattan. It had thirty bark-covered dwellings when
it was purchased through barter by Peter Minuit from the
Indians for $24.00 in 1626. It had 800,000 inhabitants

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 189

when, in 1860, Rev. Abiel Silver, at sixty-three years of age,
began life anew in the chief metropolis of the land. Rich
in stored-up energy, compact of muscle, and sound in nerve,
he could ajfford to lend an ear to a call from the New York
Society of the New Jerusalem.

A Triumvirate of men presided over the activities of the
New York Society on our arrival — at least they seemed
in the foreground among a group of excellent parishioners.
Mr. Thomas Hitchcock represented a large field, from zealous
activity in the issue of New-Church books by the press, to a
paternal care over the temperature of the church on Sundays.
He penned The Child's True Christian Religion, a simple
exposition of our faith adapted to the growing mind; and
he also wrote a book about earth and heaven, called Willie
Harper s Two Lives. After more than fifty years, the little
volume has been born anew through its recent emergence from
the London press with both full-page illustrations, and margi-
nal significant decorations.

Mr. J. K. Hoyt was the second triumvir, a man of impul-
sive generosity who came close, as Sunday School superin-
tendent, to the hearts of the children. He gave many long
years of service, and was our friend loyal and true. He is
associated with an invitation for our first carriage drive
among the environs of our new home. He especially showed
us Central Park, crude and but faintly showing incipient
beauty which was to be multiplied a thousand times under
the magical touch of the great landscape architect, Frederick
Law Olmstead.

Mr. Charles Sullivan was the third triumvir of my father's
parish, and he filled with assiduity his trusteeship of service,
being described by Rev. Samuel S. Seward as one of those
who " not only hold up the hands of the minister like Aaron
and Hur, but cheer on the soldiers of the field like Joshua."
Henry G. Thompson, who continued his father's manufacture
of carpets at Thompsonville, Connecticut, and presided over
their wholesale traffic in New York, was, like him, of tower-
ing height. He was also a man of lofty convictions, who
would have held his position unflinchingly as a minority of
one against the world through his clear recognition and

190 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

advocacy of the light of the New Church, in the distribution
of which he spent very lavishly.

For the sake of Cephas Giovanni Thompson's early portrait
of Hawthorne on its walls, I visited the Grolier Club of New
York in 1917. This institution, founded in 1884, has gath-
ered thirteen thousand volumes. It embodies the finest aspira-
tion toward the ideal production of books, characterized by
the most artistic illuminations, the highest skill in beautiful
bindings, and perfection in type and paper. It selected The
Scarlet Letter as an " American Classic " worthy its highest
output.

Hawthorne and Thompson knew each other in Boston and
Rome; and Miss Una Hawthorne, whom I met in Dresden
on November 23, 1868, gave pleasant reminiscences of little
Cora and Edmond Thompson. Joined by three other New-
Church artists — William Page, Joseph Ropes and Abel
Nichols — with an occasional visit from Robert and Mrs.
Browning, Mr. Thompson held religious service in his own
house, and nurtured for seven years his spiritual lamp in
Rome, in spite of repressive political conditions, returning
with his family in the late fifties to the New York New-Church
Society.

Brooklyn sent us Col, William C. Church, a Civil War
officer, and founder of the Army and Navy Journal, who be-
came an avowed disciple of Swedenborg's spiritual philos-
ophy. His wife possessed manners which seemed to me a
beautiful exponent of the true Christian Religion.

Visit with me the entertaining drawing-room of Mr. and
Mrs. Francis Tryon, where well-disguised guests at a costume
party astonish each other as they unmask. But there is a
serious side: three young Tryon songstresses swell the an-
thems of praise at Sunday worship. Juliet (Mrs. George
Kemp), Laura (Mrs. Grosvenor P. Lowrey), Virginia (Mrs.
George Kent), and a brother Francis, receive baptism, the
first endowing a kindergarten for our New-Church settlement
work at Kennedy House in memory of her little one trans-
planted to the garden of God.

During our stay, Mr. Joseph Kennedy Smyth returned
from a prolonged residence in Paris, bringing a bust of

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 191

Swedenborg made from the best available pictures, which
is now installed as a gift from his son, Rev. Julian K. Smyth,
in the library of the New York Society. The father also
brought seven little Smyths to enrich the Sunday School.
His delightful wife, one of five New-Church Ogden sisters,
you will meet elsewhere.

Christian Henry Meday was already well planted in New
York on our arrival, and possessed the enduring disciple-
ship to the Church which the minister knows how to value.
Espousing our faith at nineteen, he became president of the
New York Society, and Treasurer of the New Church Board
of Publication. His wife and her sister were among those
who modestly stand in the background, and turn out very
efficient treasures when discovered. Edward Riley, echoing
the name of his father, the New-Church pioneer, was sixty-one
when we knew him, and had a record as musical inspirer for
the early society. His warm-hearted family, our near neigh-
bors, represented home harmony and instrumental harmony
with their piano, 'cello, and violin. Grandchildren have been
in the Waltham New-Church school.

Italy enriched the New York Society through its son, Agos-
tino E. Cerqua, a patriot keenly alive to his country's wel-
fare. He was training little Italians to be good intelligent
American citizens; but they must not fail to know the stirring
modem history of their fathers' native land. Here is the
opening of a little address by one of his pupils:

" Victor Emmanuel owned a boot down in the Mediter-
ranean Sea; and it began to pinch about the toes and to be
uncomfortable ; and he sent for a famous French boot-maker.
Now the Emperor, while excellent in making showy things,
did not always make things that will wear; and after a while
Louis Napoleon got kicked by the very boot he was trying
to mend! "

Mr. Cerqua was much aided financially in this educational
scheme by an Italian importer and merchant, named, I think,
Signor Fabricotta; he was a noble looking man, and very
efficacious in putting superior ideas into little heads. We
were often invited to these juvenile political disquisitions.

Mr. Cerqua was bom in 1826 under Pope Leo XII, was

192 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

reared in the Roman Catholic Church, and became a student
for its priesthood ; but discovering the faith of the New Church
he enlisted as a devoted follower, and was warmly seconded
by his wife. She was six years his junior, and survived him
eleven years. Brooklyn knew her in her widowhood as a
devoted church member, and her trust in the Divine Provi-
dence never wavered during her later years of total blind-
ness. Her husband was a teachable disciple of our doctrines,
a broad and unselfish patriot of two countries, with a love
for his native land not incompatible with unswerving loyalty
to our stars and stripes, and possessed a simplicity and di-
rectness of character that the average American rarely shows.

Mr. Otto Wilhelm Schack was a member of the New
York Society who came from the land associated with King
Canute, with Hamlet's father's ghost, with Thorwaldsen,
the sculptor, and with the vexed Schleswig-Holstein question.
His father, Estatoraade Gregers Schack, was counsellor to the
King of Denmark — a position seemingly akin to a member-
ship in our President's cabinet; as the council includes the
ministries of war, marine, foreign affairs, the interior, jus-
tice, finance, and so forth.

One day, young Ensign Schack suffered an accident on one
of his Majesty's vessels; whereupon the proposition to see
America during his convalescence was urged by the Danish
consul to the United States, Mr. Henri Braem, who requested
permission therefor from the King, and from the ensign's
father. The two men arrived in New York, and young Otto
Schack shared his friend's roof.

Denmark is much given to furnishing princesses for mon-
archs on European thrones. She also furnished a suitor, in
Mr. Schack, for the beautiful and gifted young Elizabeth
Inez McCarthy, whose father, the Hon. Peter McCarthy, and
son were mentioned in the New York Directory as " Gentle-
men Landed Proprietors," and as one of the then forty fam-
ilies who owned their horses and carriages. Mr. Schack met
Miss McCarthy at a ball at the Countess de Dion's residence
in De Pau Row between Fifth and Sixth Avenues near Fif-
teenth Street, now the site of a hospital. The marriage was
on August 21, 1843, the bridegroom being twenty-three. A

Mr. J.IK. Hoyt of New York

Mr. Robert L. Smith of New York

The Angel ilelwers Heter from I'rison

Book of Acts xii. 3-11

Painting by Cephas Giovanni Thompson

Cephas Giovanni Thompson, ivhose
early portrait of Hawthorne is in
possession of the Grolier Club

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 193

life-long friend of Mr. Schack was Mr. William von Meyer
(uncle of Secretary von Meyer under President Roosevelt),
who stood as godfather, and left legacies to Mr. Schack's
little grandchild, Constance Ulee Gracie.

Mr. Otto Schack was a typical Dane, fair-haired, blue-eyed,
fine-featured, a man of gracious courtesy, and enduring
loyalty to his friends; and with his beautiful wife, and flock
of children, added much socially to our numbers. He loved
to study the fundamental principles of religious faith, and
to discuss them with his minister.

The navy reminds me of Capt. William McCarthy Little,
a young gentleman in my father's flock in the old New York
days. He was a nephew of Mrs. Otto Schack, and the son
of a New York banker. I renewed the acquaintance on Jan-
uary 17, 1869. We met at the house of the Rev. Alfred E.
Ford in Florence, Italy, at a Sunday morning service held in
his own spacious drawing room. The group of worshippers
included the family of Mr. Hiram Powers, the sculptor, a few
Italians, and Mr. and Mrs. Howard Ticknor of Boston, Mr.
Ford gave an excellent sermon, and a piano sustained the
music. Mr. Little, when offered a liturgy, produced a worn
copy of his own which had been his companion in his travels.

After service, the Americans, by invitation, gathered
around Mr. Ford's open fire and exchanged experiences. Mr.
Little, now an Annapolis midshipman, had recently been ap-
pointed Aide to Commodore Pennock, and had profited by
two years of rich European experience with the Admiral
Farragut expedition; his opportunities in the shadow of
greatness were magnificent, and we heard excellent things
of him through Judge Aldis of Vermont, who, while consul
at Nice, had arranged honors for the Admiral, and had noted
the young New-Church midshipman. The latter rose to
honors in rank. A group of young people baptized by Mr.
Silver is pleasantly remembered — Messrs. Little, Tryon,
Church, Moore, Lowry, and others.

Into the veins of John L. Jewett eight generations of New
England Jewetts had been pouring their sturdy Puritan blood.
Because of his English ancestors, we expect in him tenacity
of will and firmness of purpose. King Charles the First, and

194 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Archbishop Laud did not like the liberal-minded Jewett
weavers, who were sometimes naughty nonconformists; and
they, not liking the king's "Acts of Conformity," migrated
to America in 1638. Although Puritans, they were not so un-
worldly as to leave their heraldic devices behind, with the
Jewett motto : " Tou jours le meme." Neither were they so
spiritually unpractical as to despise riches, for Governor
Winthrop calls them " godly men of good estate."

John L. Jewett, born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1799,
was entrusted by Harper's, Appleton's, and other eminent
publishing houses with the revisions of their most difficult
work in foreign languages. He was translator of German,
Spanish, and French, editing and issuing in 1854 a French
and English dictionary. On January 17, 1849, Bryant, Irv-
ing, Greeley, Raymond, and other eminent men heard his
"most highly finished and original address" on Benjamin
Franklin.

Mr. Jewett was, on our arrival in New York, holding sep-
arate services on Sunday mornings in a hall down town as
a representative of the General Convention of the New Jeru-
salem, of which the New York Society was not a member.
My father's position was this: The Convention had faults,
but he preferred being within the organization, trying to mend
them, than without, bombarding them with criticism. Where-
upon Mr. Jewett, his wife, and his four or five musical chil-
dren transferred themselves to the pulpit ministrations and
the parochial activities under Mr. Silver. He was editor of
the New Jerusalem Messenger from 1855 to 1862.

I was fairly driven into my first venture in Sunday-School
teaching by the authoritative voice of the New York superin-
tendent: "You must come, you live near." It was a case of
enforced draft, not of spontaneous volunteering; and there
never was a more signal instance of unpreparedness. Sud-
denly, two little Thachers, and two little Smyths, two little
Bells, and two little Schacks, one little Turner, one little
Meday, and one little Sprague were thrust into my care! I
had had no brothers and no sisters, and only an intermittent
cousinly acquaintance with little folk. The sunshine of play-
fulness emanating from these little New Yorkers danced

One of the treasures in Miss Silver's
New York Sunday School class

^%^-

K

Another treasure in Miss Silver s
NeuJ York Sunday School class

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 195

gaily all over the corner where we sat. Their bubbling
spirits and roguish fun which would have been delightful
and normal on Monday, were reprehensibly out of place on
Sunday in the eyes of the tyro of a teacher.

I did not know a line of pedagogy, I had never been near
a normal school, I was without training in forms, rules or
systems, I was ignorant of child-psychology as a science.
But teachers are born and not made. By instinct I kept com-
pletely within the children's range in the instruction given;
they were eager listeners, and volunteered questions worthy
of a forum: Would the little unbaptized baby next door who
had died go to heaven? Would the wicked father ever see
his child again?

They entered into the assigned topic, picked it up, and
carried it farther. One day I said that we are real people and
that our material body is like clothing; that our spiritual
hand feels through its covering of clay: whereupon the child
of luxury in the class, the one with the velvet coat, lifted up
her hand, exclaiming,

" yes, I have two gloves on, one of flesh and one of kid!"

On another day, the instruction was repeated with varia-
tions: We, as real people, live in our bodies as in a house, and
we look out of our material eyes as through a window. And,
as they had seen a lifeless human body, I pointed out to them
that, although the material eye was there with all its beauti-
ful lenses, it could not see: whereupon the handsome, mis-
chief-loving boy of the class, with his quick mind, exclaimed,

" yes. Miss Silver, I see, I know all about it, the person
has gone away and left the window, and the blinds are shut."

May I lead you out into the world with these children?
One lad would now be called Archbishop, with the United
Stales and Canada for his archdiocese, if our Church were
organized ecclesiastically after the manner of the Anglicans.
Over against the Church is the Stage, on which another lad
trod as a comedian until the fall of the curtain on his earth-
life in 1918. The angel of the resurrection called the only
ewe lamb from her mother; and another young girl from her
betrothed. One married a publisher, and from their home
little human editions came, bearing the name of the firm;

196 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

another, a lover of economics, married a man who represented
Labor's welfare under President Wilson. A third represents
domestic life in California; a fourth, named for the Empress
Eugenie, drifted to France after the manner of her father
and grandfather; to a fifth the tragedy of the Titanic came
home to her husband, and heaven subsequently called away
all her children. She might have been like the Greek Niobe,
or the Scriptural Rachel — "she would not be comforted,
because they were not." But, instead, she writes me: "All
my jewels are safe and free in the Heavenly Life." One
ardent child named her doll for her Sunday-School teacher;
and her little brother, deliberate of speech, said on our
leaving New York:

" Oh, I am so glad that I am not in Miss Silver's Sunday-
School class, because I do not have to be sorry when she
goes away."

I will now turn to the minister's part in the New York life.
The Society had had clergymen to some extent nonresident,
who came in town for pulpit service; and, as a new social
centre, the parlors embracing the entire second floor in Mr.
Silver's English basement house. No. 84, East 35th Street,
were now thrown open at stated intervals, once or twice a
month, for parish reunions. All came, the opulent, and those
of slender purses, people of all sorts and conditions, thereby
making the gatherings widely representative; parishioners
furnished readings and music, vocal and instrumental. We
learned to know each other.

Study of spiritual truth was also desired; and a goodly
number of persons met in the Sunday-School rooms each
winter to interchange sentiments. I recall Mr. Hitchcock
with his Latin version of the Apocalypse Explained, and Mr.
William Mason, invited to preside at the humble reed organ.
The public should be reached: and my mother's letter before
me dated March 19, 1861, speaks of a four months' course
of Sunday evening lectures just completed; and both she
and the Messenger record good attendance. In 1865 she
writes that nearly one hundred have been baptized during
her husband's four-years' stay. He had issued two volumes
of his lectures through the Appleton Company, Symbolic

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 197

Character of the Sacred Scriptures and The Holy Word in
Its Own Defence. He loved to visit his parish, which had
fringes reaching into Long Island, New Jersey, and Staten
Island.

The dear old New York parish had color, warmth, variety,
and, above all, opportunity. The New York House of Wor-
ship on Thirty-fifth Street near Park Avenue was dedicated in
1859. I paid tribute to it by attending its semi-centennial
celebration in 1909, the Hon. John Bigelow presiding, Judge
Francis J. Worcester giving a historical address. Col. William
C. Church, reminiscences, Rev. John C. Ager from Brooklyn,
fraternal wishes, Rev. S. S. Seward, a fervent greeting, and
Rev. Julian K. Smyth, the pastor, diffusing a spirit of spiritual
hospitality.

XV. SALEiM, MASSACHUSETTS

What's to do?

Shall we go see the reliques of this town?

— Twelfth Night, iii: 3, 18. A.D. 1601.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem in 1804. He fed
as a child on Shakespeare and Milton, attended Bowdoin
College in Maine, and returned to Salem to woo the delight-
fully congenial Sophia Peabody in the Grimshaw house.
Henry James, writing of Hawthorne, is keen to discern the
matchless Rembrandt shadows in his stories, but pities his
meagre, colorless surroundings. I protest. Life there was
new, but not necessarily crude.

Henry James should have seen Salem, and the quiet grace
and dignified repose of its very porches and doorways, and
its best houses harmonious in structural proportion, and ex-
quisite in their subordinate design. Visiting at the Cook-
Oliver house, 142 Federal Street, Mr. James would have
observed the Alsatian paper on the hall, hand-printed from
blocks fifteen by eighteen inches, now in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York. Seated in a faultless Chippendale
chair, with his cup filled from a Paul Revere coffee pot,
slender and graceful, Henry James would have admired here
the supremely good work of Mclntyre — a genius in bringing

198 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

beauty out of white pine through his conscientious craftsman-
ship by hand-processes in carving and the use of a hundred
different tools. The family of Mr. James's host, well arrayed
and well mannered, should have driven him on Sunday to
the Lancaster church, designed by Charles Bulfinch, whose
spire delights the eye for miles around. He had part in
designing the matchless Capitol at Washington.

Our first home in Salem was at 29 Charter Street, near
Hawthorne's birthplace and near the scene of his wooing.
In our spacious brick building, with high-studded rooms
twenty-two feet square repeated on each story, were long,
dark mysterious passages and baffling closets suggesting trag-
edy. We found that we gained prestige by living in this
Stephen H. Phillips mansion, and we enjoyed the borrowed
glory. But any undue pride was likely to be cowed by our
contemplation of the neighboring "Burying Point." Here
was interred in 1698 the body of Timothy Lindall. The cen-
tral arch of his headstone encloses a cherub's head, suggesting
the happy land above. Minor arches are on either side:
one crowns a skeleton in bas-relief whose eyeless sockets
remind us that the light of our earthly life will soon be
put out; and opposite stands a winged figure of Father
Time bearing on his head the significant hourglass to ad-
monish us that the sands of our life are fast running out;
and carrying in his hand the fatal scythe to warn us of the
grim reaper. These, with the weeping willows and the lugu-
brious epitaphs on those " sleeping below " all reminded us
of the coming of the Great and Terrible Judgment Day.

A happier theology came to Salem when Major Joseph
Hiller discovered the New Church in 1796. In 1840 there was
a continuation of quiet testimony, as expressed through
Sunday worship in private families in Salem. Mr. John
Burleigh (1780-1862) had shown his colors, and was an
early disciple. His daughter, Eleanor Pauline Burleigh, when
twenty years of age married, on June 3, 1842, Dr. John T.
Harris of Abington; and the church there, and in Roxbury,
can testify to the service rendered by himself and family who
will appear elsewhere in this narrative. Abel Nichols shared
the Salem enthusiasm.

Dr. S. M. Cute of Salem

Dr. John T. Harris

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 199

Dr. S. M. Gate gathered up the threads dropped by Mr.
Burleigh and others, and was instrumental in bringing Mr.
Silver to Salem, having himself conducted lay service when
necessary. For these occasions, he promulgated previously
a playful decree to his patients that they were not to take
sick, or grow worse between ten and twelve A.M. on Sun-
days. The Silver and Gate friendship, which suffered neither
variableness nor shadow of turning, began during the min-
ister's semi-missionary vacations in Maine. At an earlier
period, Gate had turned as wholeheartedly to the teachings
of Hahnemann, as to those of Swedenborg. As a zealous
disciple of the latter, few men have been more concentrated
in purpose, and diligent in spirit. At the instance of Dr.
Gate and his confreres, Mr. Silver accepted in 1866 an
official invitation to the pulpit of the Salem Society of the
New Jerusalem.

George Ropes, not yet transferred to the Boston Society,
strengthened the little group at Salem. He enlivened our
evenings by his spirited account of voyages in his Uncle
John Bertram's ships to Zanzibar for dates and spices. His
brother, Joseph Ropes, long a resident abroad, was perfectly
fitted by temperament, culture, and a degree of delicacy of
health, for leisurely social life on the continent. Joseph
Ropes, uncle of these brothers, was later strongly associated
with Salem, whence he returned for the evening of life after
years in Italy where he and his wife, a sister of Rev. Frank
Sewall had aided in keeping alive the light of the New
Church in days of little religious liberty.

Visit the spacious home on Chestnut Street of Mr. and
Mrs. Nathan Nichols. He is of Quaker descent; she is a
sister of Rev. Thomas P. Rodman, ordained into the New-
Church ministry by Rev. Thomas Worcester in 1843. Mrs.
Nathan Nichols was of ardent temperament, with a large
generous nature, and real glad-heartedness. She maintained
an affirmative attitude toward her minister and his household,
and was impetuously ready with her purse for a Sunday-
School festival subscription. Tall and impressive in figure,
her mobile face was alive with emotion as she enacted the
typical hostess at her Silver Wedding Anniversary.

200 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Miss Harriet Mansfield of Broad Street in Salem, although
a semi-invalid and shut-in, preserved sunshine of tempera-
ment, and has always kept her lamp of spiritual truth trimmed
and burning. Her home had the usual sea-faring traditions,
and I recall a sofa of massive wood carving brought by a kins-
man from Russia, which is determined to stay in the family,
and quite scorns, as inadequate, a proffered purchase price
of one thousand dollars. But another sofa less princely,
was vastly more impressive ; here sat my father, fifteen years
later, when, on the verge of another world, he paid her his
last visit, and, as she said, illumined the dark March day by
his spiritual message.

The Salem New-Church Society, having no consecrated
House of Worship of its own, met during the first year of Mr.
Silver's stay, in the chapel oi the Howard Street Baptist
Church erected in 1805. It was a bright, pleasant gathering-
place, and here the Sunday School held its first Christmas
festival. It was a tentative effort, and timid prophets de-
clared that the children would not be equal to the adventu-
rous musical programme. But the chorus which included one
little Ingersoll, two little Cates, and three little Whitmores,
sang like nightingales, and had all the glad-hearted spon-
taneity of feathered songsters in the trees; and they received
their gifts with the happy eagerness of childhood. Mr. Hardy
exercised quiet fidelity as Sunday-School superintendent.
He, and his wife, and Mrs. Bartlett, were unobtrusive workers
in the society, of the kind who are never fully recognized
except by the recording angel.

The chapel proving too small for Sunday evening lectures,
they were transferred to the main church itself, with good
audiences; and Mr. Upton, the unassuming New-Church
organist, gave sympathetic expression to the musical service.
Mrs. Ingersoll was another worshiper; and if you look down
her ancestral perspective you will find more sea-captains:
the storybook of nearly everybody's life smells of the salt
sea air. Margaret Barker's zeal for church work and her
absorbing devotion to her friends were only equaled by
her ability to paint charming sketches of plant life. Mrs.
Newhall is worth your acquaintance: many winters had

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 201

frosted her hair, but its wintriness was neutralized by the
benevolent sunshine on her face. She was tall and impres-
sive in stature, and weighty in influence. Deliberate in
action, she pondered in thought; and she decided in her
rapidly ripening years, to receive New-Church baptism, and
to enter our fold.

During Mr. Silver's second year, we removed to Chestnut
Street, and New-Church worship was transferred to Hamilton
Hall, built in 1805. And now a new element came tempo-
rarily into our devotional life. New-Church people making
a long summer stay at Swampscott Beach drove over on
Sundays — the Robbinses, Hortons, Wooldredges, William
Dunbars, and William Cutlers. They brought earnest pur-
pose in worship; and, because we went up to the praise of
the Lord together, life-long friendships with the Silver family
took root.

Life in Salem was not wholly religious. Picture Mr. Silver
in his parishioners' gift of an easy chair — with an adjust-
able back, that he might incline at his ease, and an attachable
bookrack, that he might read. But, with his wife opposite,
he is at chess — a game inherently monarchical in its king
and queen, feudal in its loiights, aristocratic in its castles,
and ecclesiastical in its bishops. Kings, barons, and trouba-
dours loved it; but Wycliff rebuked the clergy for playing
it at the inn, until " thei han lost there witt."

The wife of Dr. Cate (Martha J. Messer) survived him
many years. Her transition from her earlier faith, that of
the Episcopal Church, to that of the New Church, was by a
path hedged with questions; and the answers were carefully
weighed. Through the heart-warming hospitality of her
household she had known many New-Church clergymen;
and the Rev. William B. Hayden was successfully instru-
mental in the solution of her queries. Mr. Silver valued
her; and unremittingly after his decease they continued the
old beckoning welcome to his family.

For Mrs. Cate, her last brief, sweet sleep which men call
death, followed a protracted and trying illness, softened by
the devoted care of loving children. At her funeral the
silent form surrounded by flowers expressed a certain majesty

202 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

of character born of a strong and conscientious will; the
benign look on the countenance spoke of victories won; and
there was also youth mingled with the tranquillity. She had
left her message behind as is often the case when the spirit
and the body part, and we recall the promise of the New
Church teaching us that years belong to the body which the
temporary tenant has now left, and that she, carrying life-giv-
ing goodness with her, is now to enjoy perpetual youth for-
ever. The Rev. John Goddard, who shares with the present
writer a friendship with the Gates covering half a century,
gave a heart-stirring and spiritually illuminating address
at the obsequies. It breathed such a benediction as a servant
of the Lord of golden ripeness of character can give.

XVI. AUTUMNAL DAYS IN ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS

October, tawny maid, with russet gown

Embroidered with the sumach's scarlet dyes,

The sweet-gum and the maple's traceries,

Comes lightly through the fields and meadows brown.

Upon her lips there is the purple stain

Of grapes — blue asters bind her nut brown hair,

And all about her is the golden air.

And silvery veil of softly falling rain.

— Reverie by Viola Virginia Antley.

At seventy -one, Mr. Silver began his thirteen years in Rox-
bury. Gladheartedly he enlarged his efforts in the Master's
vineyard which always supplies the wine of gladness — as
the Psalmist calls it — for those who love the work.

For the initiative in the New-Ghurch movement here, we
are indebted to Mrs. William Francis Jackson, a lady of great
nobility of character, high-spirited but with admirable self-
control, and firm as the everlasting hills in her religious con-
victions. In the winter of 1858-1859 she gathered persons
in her very spacious drawing-room, where services by visit-
ing ministers or laymen were conducted. Gradually a de-
termined effort began for permanent public worship. The
Brookline Society was at that time shepherdless ; and Mr.
William B. Hasehine with Mrs. Jackson visited Mr. Silver
in Salem, to ask that he assume spiritual charge of the two

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 203

groups of receivers a few miles apart, preaching in the at-
tractive little stone church at Brookline on Sunday mornings,
and in a hall at Roxbury on Sunday afternoons.

Mr. Silver accepted the double field, beginning in May,
1868. Dr. John T. Harris, an earnest co-worker, organized
a Sunday School which grew in seventeen months from 28
to 59 members. Miss Georgiana Appleton gives contem-
poraneous testimony of its first Christmas Eve, where old and
young gathered with happy hearts. Again she writes:

"March 6, 1870. — A beautiful day, and one, I think,
many of us will never forget; and may we all be led in the
right path, in the way of goodness and truth! Our church ser-
vices were of the deepest interest. The hall was crowded with
an attractive audience. Twenty-two of our little society were
baptized, — from the head of a family, down to a little child.
It was a very interesting sight. Many tears of joy and thank-
fulness came to the eyes of those who were watching the
friends they loved so well." *

Mr. Silver, desiring that the religious Society should not
be hastily or crudely formed, that the ground should be
carefully measured, and his own efforts seriously tested,
preached two years and eight months under the Roxbury
Association, a body organized for external uses — pulpit
expenses, securing of hall for worship, advertising services,
etc. The latter part of this period shows the richest harvest,
Mr. Thompson recording (p. 14) : " From the sixth of March
to the twelfth of December, 1870, forty-two persons were
baptized."

In forming the religious society, Mr. Silver again acted
with deliberation. Before leaving Salem he had conferred
with the Rev. Thomas Worcester and the Rev. James Reed
regarding the Roxbury-Brookline proposition; and an of-
ficial communication is the pleasant fraternal reply formu-
lated later by their Society. I give a brief extract:

''Resolved, That we take great pleasure and satisfaction
in the prospect of another society of the New Church within

* Pages 13, 14 in History of the Boston Highlands (later called Roxbury)
Society of the New Jerusalem by John A. Thompson. Boston. Published by
the Society. 1887.

204 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

the limits of our city; that we cordially extend to it the right
hand of fellowship; that it has our best wishes for its peace
and prosperity; that we trust that the two societies in Boston
may be spiritually, as well as literally, near to each other,
and may work harmoniously and efficiently together in the
promotion of the common cause in which they are engaged."

On December 6th, 1870, the religious Society was insti-
tuted with forty-nine members who signed the " Articles of
Charity and Faith." Many from the Boston and Brookline
Societies were present, and warmly congratulated the mem-
bers of the new spiritual sheepfold. Following the institu-
tion service, Mr. Silver's address dwelt on the fact that it
was primarily the living principles mutually embraced that
made us a Society, but that our reciprocal desire for an out-
ward acknowledgment of this union tends to bring the divine
elements down into ultimates, and helps us to become more
strongly united, and readily progressive in the heavenly way.

Offerings for the edifice came generously, when, after seven
years' worship in halls, we were ready to transfer to a con-
secrated Church of our own. The lot was eligible, and the
building rich in the browns of the Roxbury pudding-stone.
The audience-room has a timbered roof, the story below com-
prises a vestry seating 200, and five minor rooms.

Donald MacDonald, a noble Scotchman and most worthy
disciple of the New Church, aside from furnishing the stained
glass at large through a business arrangement, presented a
most effective window for the vestibule, setting forth the
Scriptural Pharisee and Publican in a manner to incite us all
to humility of spirit as we enter for worship. Mrs. Robert
L. Smith made a gift of chairs for the chancel. Through
Horace P. Chandler came the stone font, a perfect specimen
of Gothic art with a heavy moulded and decorated base,
round shaft, enriched cap, and octagonal basin, upon which
are cut appropriate emblems. It is supplied with a jet, thus
carrying out to a degree the idea of baptism by living water.
Mr. J. P. Fenno proffered the larger sum by which the au-
dience room might be finished in richer wood. A window
to Mr. and Mrs. George Howe designed by Fredericks of
New York was given by his daughters, Mrs. Peleg Eddy and

Mrs. William F. Jacks

Mrs. Abiel Silver

Glimpse of Chunk of tin- \eu Jerusdlem at Roxhury\
Massachusetts, dedicated in 1875

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 205

Mrs. Edward Harris; it contains three figures, each in a
large quatrefoil: at the left is Moses with the Tables of the
Law indicating the Jewish Dispensation; above, the Good
Shepherd who founded the Christian Dispensation; at the
right, the Angel of the Apocalypse, trumpet in hand, pro-
claiming the promise of the New Jerusalem. For aid in
musical service in the Sunday School, Dr. George G. Ken-
nedy gave an excellent organ for the vestry, and numerous
copies of the Liturgy for adult worship.

The fatal illness in 1874 of Lieut. William B. Gushing,
who performed the remarkably daring feat of torpedoing the
Confederate ironclad Albemarle in the Roanoke on Octo-
ber 27, 1864, quickened the religious devotion of his mother,
Mrs. Mary B. Gushing. She sat under Mr. Silver's preaching
in Salem, and presented a copy of the Bible for the Church
sanctuary at Roxbury, her later home.

All this reminds us of the scene near Mount Sinai, when
the willing hearted and the wise hearted brought their free
offerings to enrich the tabernacle of the Lord; the craftsman,
the skillful worker, the embroiderer, the weaver (Exodus,
xxxv: 35 R.V.). I might add our joy at Christmas Avhen
we brought the fir tree, the pine tree and the box together to
beautify the place of His sanctuary. On the chancel wall is
this inscription:

" send out Thy Light and Thy Truth: let them lead me;
let them bring me unto Thy Holy Hill, and to Thy Taber-
nacle."

The Dedication service was on January 5, 1875, and in
one feature it recalled that on the consecration of Solomon's
Temple in I Kings, viii: 6-9, when a procession of priests
brought in the ark containing the two tables of stone — the
Divine Covenant — and deposited it in the Most Holy Place.
Now, the venerable Rev. Joseph Pettee bearing a copy of
the Divine Word in his hand, entered at the head of a pro-
cession of consecrated clergymen, including Rev. James Reed,
Rev. Samuel S. Seward, Rev. John Worcester, Rev. F. H.
Hemperly, and others, and he placed the Volume in the Re-
pository permanently constructed for that purpose. Mr. Sil-
ver's dedicatory address was followed by a beautiful sermon

206 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

from the Rev. John Worcester, from Revelation, i : 4, wherein
the vital elements of spiritual life are defined.

Who were some of the early Roxbury parishioners that
have been translated to the higher life?

Dr. Joseph P. Paine gave for thirty-one years a superbly
liberal margin of time from his professional labors; he was
never blue from pessimism, nor gray from apathy. Dr.
John T. Harris, beloved of his patients, had a cheerful face
which furnished psycho-therapeutic treatment in addition to
his little pellets. And this reminds me of Miss Appleton,
who scattered sunshine among us for forty years. The face
of Dr. Hiram B. Cross was a benediction, and he administered
consolatory treatment to the bereaved by his tactfully dis-
tributed pamphlets on the other life. His wife, recently de-
ceased, was a faithful ally, and devotee of the Sunday School.
William L. Blanchard has been called " the strongest man on
the Prudential Committee," his annual commercial trips
abroad giving him large outlook as a man of affairs. Samuel
F. Howard held the scales judicially as a presiding officer,
and, although living far from church, rivaled the diurnal
motion of the earth in his regularity of attendance in his
pew. Simeon H. Keene supplied the warm church welcome
to new comers; and Cornelius T. Dunham had the moral
courage and stamina for furthering a new cause. John A.
Thompson was our treasurer. Societies are subject to vicis-
situdes; and financial clouds might frown, congregations
might wax and wane, waves of calamity might dash high;
but there sat Mr. Thompson for forty-four years, as unmoved
as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Upon the heads of the Nathanael D. Silsbee household of
six or seven Mr. Silver laid his hand in baptism. On their
severance of relation with another Church, they wrote of their
withdrawal to their Unitarian pastor. Rev, Mr. Bowen, him-
self on the verge of the other world. And he replied with
appreciation of their loss, but largeness of vision, ending
his letter to them as follows:

"There are many paths that lead to heaven, and I hope
that we shall all finally meet in the Holy City, New Jeru-
salem."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 207

James R. Phelps gave lavishly of time and vitality; pre-
siding for thirty years at our Church organ, winning young
people to the choir, inspiring infantile choruses in our can-
tatas, and possessing the musical temperament.

The parents of Captain Thomas G. Jewitt of Maine trans-
mitted the New-Church faith to the fifth generation, George
and Lora French, who were confirmed in the Roxbury So-
ciety. We warmly welcomed the Captain's sister, Mrs. Henry
B. Hoskins, and five of his adult children, and their house-
holds — the Jesse Jewitts, Charles Jewitts, Perkinses, Hallets,
and Mrs. Charles T. Pratt. Captain Jesse Jewitt was suc-
cessively detailed on the staffs of Generals Sherman, Sheri-
dan, Hamlin, Canby, Banks and Hurlburt in the Civil War,
after which he brought to Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Mary
Wood, a bride of sixteen, from her New Orleans home in a
garden of pomegranates, figs, oranges, bananas and plums.
Rev. Theodore Wright opened to her the gate of our Church,
after which a whole detachment of Jewitts from Bridgewater
moved Roxburyward.

Mrs. Mary G. Chandler Ware was one of Mr. Silver's
earnest auditors during his five Lancaster summer vacations
in 1871-75. A great-granddaughter of Judge John Chandler,
she inherited picturesque acres on the sinuous Nashua, enjoy-
ing nearly eighty years her stout oak house and its admirable
library. She moved back the intrusive barn and taught it
good manners. Her fences showed thrift, her fields, intelli-
gence. " She is the best farmer of us all," said the New-
Church Jonas Goss and Horatio Humphrey. Her Thoughts
in My Garden speaks of the practical utility of fallen leaves,
and the spiritual significance of flowers, weeds, and squirrels.
She labored for women prisoners, and neighborhood better-
ment. When forty-three she married the noble Dr. John
Ware, son of Professor Henry Ware of the Harvard Divinity
School.

Mrs. Francis W. Kittredge gave zest to the Roxbury choir
musically, held the interest of her Sunday-School class, and
contributed valuable social life to our parish. Her sisters
were Misses Florence and Mabel Wlieaton. All were children
of Charles A. Wlieaton, who was a very earnest New-Church

208 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

lay lecturer. He had come into the New Church through
Noble's Appeal, and wrote symbolic illustrations from Scrip-
ture for the Daily Standard of Syracuse, living afterwards
in Minnesota. His wife was Ellen Douglas, daughter of
Judge Birdseye, and happy were we who knew eight of their
children.

Mr. Kittredge wrote out for me from memory in 1911, a
funeral discourse by my father in 1877, over a beloved
nephew. He says:

"We were all in the depths of gloom and misery. And
then, there was an immediate translation of our minds and
hearts from the physical suggestions of pain, permanent loss,
and mourning, to the shores of the spiritual world in its
brightness, and freshness, and strength. Mr. Silver described
the joyful reception by the heavenly angels of the immortal
spirit of young Morgan; and of his appropriate home-coming
and entrance into his own inheritance. The sense of our
loss was wiped out; there was no loss to him; and we could
not wish him back."

Mrs. Horace P. (Eliza Withington) Noyes was the daugh-
ter of a scholarly and Bible-loving Episcopalian clergyman.
Developing self -poise and self-determination, she entered the
New-Church fold. She proved an admirable Roxbury Sun-
day-School teacher for boys, sometimes purposely leading
them a little beyond their depth that she might incite them
to explore the vast expanse beyond, and holding them after
their entrance upon the great ocean of life. They wrote her
of their difficult spiritual navigation, and she gave them sym-
pathetic help. Miss Mary A. Ingell was often a silent and
invisible benefactor of Church and friend, and only the re-
cording angel could tell her beautiful story. Maine, which
seems to produce New-Church people to enrich other regions,
sent us Mrs. Annie Seavey Foster, whose early home was
illumined by our faith, and who came, conscientiously bear-
ing her lamp in her hand. Mrs. Henry G. R. Dearborn was
another treasure. Her husband's family aided the Revolu-
tionary War, served in the cabinet of President Jefferson,
and gave name to Fort Dearborn where Chicago now stands.
She was fine-fibred, and loved her friends graciously.

5 o

"I'

^ ^

Home oj Rei. Abiel Silier at Ro.xbury. Massachusetts
erected by him in 1874

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 209

" These," she would say, pointing to the pictures of Mr. and
Mrs. Silver, "these are my Penates." She was alive to
spiritual truth and loved her Bible. The Christmas gift
of a little brass taper-holder turned her thoughts to the Divine
assurance: " Thou wilt light my candle."

Among the many marriages consecrated by Mr. Silver,
perhaps the most unusual was one at his own home in Rox-
bury on the evening of January the sixth, 1876. Upon the
head of the bridegroom-elect had descended the snows of
seventy-seven winters, and upon the head of the bride-elect
had fallen the sunshine of seventy-two summers. They had
been lovers in their youth, but had become estranged. In
the course of years both had married, and both had lost their
consorts by death. And now, in the crimson and gold of
their autumnal years they renewed the vernal romance of
their youth. Both received the genial approval of their de-
scendants who were present at the ceremony. And after the
final benediction on heads which, if the soul ever grew old,
we should call venerable, they began the closing journey of
life with the privilege of counting the milestones together.

Rev. Edward Everett Hale was an excellent illustration
of interchangeable good will between Churches. He and Rev.
Abiel Silver first met and became acquainted as guests at a
Unitarian lawyer's dinner table. When we all met him, he
gave me a sweeping invitation to attend for all time his Ladies'
Literature Class. I accepted for three years, where I found
his instruction vivid, stimulating, whole-souled. His flaming
zeal for Shakespeare was shown at a reading of " Twelfth
Night" by Professor Robert Raymond of Brooklyn at the
home of our charming and gifted neighbor, Mrs. William
Atherton. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Jonathan
Edwards, but the blood of austere Calvinism which he handed
down was softened in her veins by her upbringing under
Henry Ward Beecher; her mother, who married into a branch
of the Yale Dwights, loved to discuss theology with my
father. Mr. Hale's social tact was shown when, one day,
I incidentally found myself beside him in an open street
car. He instantly began :

" Miss Silver, I am so glad to see you, I have had a

210 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

story laid up for two years to tell you. One evening in our
vestry a lady called your father an old man; and I said,
'Don't knock us all flat by calling Mr. Silver an old man,
he is younger than I.' The lady smiled a cryptic smile, and
subsequently inquired your father's age. Now, Miss Silver,
I honestly thought that he was younger than I, and also
thought that the incident would please you." (Mr. Silver was
twenty-five when, in 1822, Mr. Hale was born.)

Twice, in Mr. Silver's illnesses, Mr. Hale sent big masses
of flowers from his church; and once, at a Unitarian funeral
when their singers were lacking, our choir furnished the
music; which reminds me that he wrote with ardent enthusi-
asm of the hymns of our New-Church Mary Lathbury, saying:
" Her chance of having a name two hundred years hence is
better than that of any writer in America today." Her
Easter hymn and its music by Rev. Frank Sewall are of ex-
traordinary value, and greatly enrich our liturgy.

Mr. Hale was fond of saying that the man in his family
history of whom he was the most proud was the man who was
hung (Philip Hale). And in our World War we realize the
value of his Man Without a Country, and do not wonder, in
its subsequent reprint of a million copies abroad, that the
Italians call it " a great luminous taper."

Within ten days after the sudden transition of my father
to another world, Mr. Hale, whose parish was all Boston,
came to see my mother and myself, declaring that we could
not realize how much it had cost him to stay away so long,
and that he had abstained from coming because our other
friends had nearer claims. He spent an hour, in his gener-
ous way, in extending comfort, saying:

"In railroad and other accidents I have more than once
expected to be instantly killed; I have faced death, as far
as attitude of mind was concerned, as completely as I ever
shall, and I wish to assure you that the sensation was per-
fectly delightful, because I should soon have my questions
answered regarding the other life."

The limitations of the great-hearted Mr. Hale remind me
of a similar instance. Mr. Silver was asked by one of his
parishioners to pay a tributary call of courtesy to a lady who

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 211

had attained one hundred years of life. He thus described it:

"I was ushered into the drawing-room, and quite soon
a grey-haired lady of sixty entered; she was the granddaugh-
ter. A bit later, a grey-haired lady of eighty entered; she
was the daughter. Then came the centenarian. Her white
hair was in little curls all around her face, and she looked
just like a century plant in full blossom! "

Not long afterwards, the angels of the resurrection wished
to welcome her to their world, and she fell into that sweet,
brief, beneficent sleep which men call death. Previously,
consciously facing the situation, she grew into an intensely
questioning attitude. Her Unitarian minister was summoned,
and she asked:

"What kind of a world am I to enter? What are its con-
ditions? Who will meet me? How will things look? What
will be my activities? "

And the honest-hearted clergyman — well-read, scholarly,
intellectual — answered squarely, " I do not know."

So the sweet centenarian passed on with her questions un-
answered; and her family said, "0 why did we not send
for Mr. James Reed, or Mr. Silver? "

In religious classes, Mr. Silver's answers were brief, to
the point, and above all, clear; with just enough of philosophy
to reinforce them by appealing to the reasoning faculty, and
just enough illustration to make them interesting. For ex-
ample :

" We may therefore settle down in the absolute conclusion
that, as the spiritual world is the world of causes, and the
material world the world of effects, therefore natural bodies
can never rise into the spiritual plane; that effects can
never ascend to causes; that the brain does not produce
the soul, nor the universe, God; that the Lord's works are
onward; that the butterfly does not return into the chrysalis,
nor the hen into the egg-shell, nor angels into bodies of clay."

Mr. Silver loved to indoctrinate novitiates, and during the
simple afternoon services in the Roxbury Hall invited audi-
tors to remain after the benediction and ask questions from
their seats. I recall only three questions: one person asked,
whether a man must not do wrong from sheer fatalism if

212 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

God foresaw that he would certainly do it? And Mr. Silver
replied that God would not be infinite, if He could not foresee,
without touching in the faintest degree man's freedom; and
that, when He foresaw that the man would do wrong He also
foresaw that he need not have done it, if he had acted from the
higher power which God is constantly extending to all His
creatures. The man took his choice. Another questioner,
believing in phrenology (now regarded as a pseudo-science)
presented this proposition:

" If a man has an enormously large organ of combative-
ness, is he not practically predestined to become a pugilist,
or a contentious peace-breaker, or a quarrelsome husband,
or an abnormal controversialist? " To which Mr. Silver
replied:

"Not at all; he can by the grace of God turn that very
tendency the other way, making it combat the very dangers
that threaten ; transforming his energy into a splendid weapon
toward achieving self-control. All depends on this; whether
he puts that weapon into the hands of the Old Man in the
flesh, or into the hands of the New Man. Remember that
the Lord is behind the latter." On another occasion Mr.
Silver had been saying that the Lord in His incarnation had
wrapped Himself around with an outer finite nature similar
to ours which can be tempted in all points like ourselves
(Hebrews, iv, 15). And a visiting clergyman of another
faith, asked, with a bit of triumph:

"What became of this nature? Did it die like the beasts
of the field, or is it now a distinct personality? "

" That other nature," Mr. Silver replied, " did not possess
by itself the element of immortality; it perished when no
longer needed. We must have a higher or inner nature be-
yond the outer one where, through freedom and rationality,
we have the capacity for union with God. Our higher nature
is finite, but that of Jesus Christ was the very Divine Itself."

But Mr. Silver's great opportunity and delight was his
parochial visits of which he practically made two almost
every evening. He went early to see the children who would
rush to meet him, lead him to a chair, plant themselves one
on each knee, and begin the conversation. The mother, after

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 213

carrying them off to their slumhers, would return, and ask
questions suggested by his stimulating sermons, thereby un-
consciously turning the visit into a Bible class. The husband,
perhaps a non-Churchgoer, has been known to listen behind
his newspaper. Mr. Silver would reach home by nine o'clock
and commune for an hour with his family. These parochial
visits, which might be purely social according to circum-
stances, ensured one-third of Mr. Silver's undoubted success;
the parlor classes ensured one-third; and the rest was gained
by his Sunday morning sermons together with his Sunday
evening lectures, where I have seen standing room occupied.

His missionary message during ten years as a lay lecturer,
and thirty-two as a clergyman, was chiefly this: To show that
the Lamb's Book of Life — the Holy Word — was written
within and on the back (Rev., v, 1); and that the renewal
of the ancient interpretation by symbolism would break the
seals, and reveal the inner sense.

To gather up every thread, even the remotest, in his parish
and weave them into the fabric of Church life; to impress
vividly on his members the distinctive value of our spiritual
treasures; this was another phase of his work, as well as to
teach, from the very beginning, the new comers — like the
Apthorps, Barteaux, Chipmans, Dixes, Hudsons, Richardsons,
Woodwards, etc. Mr. Silver brought a missionary impetus
from the west; it has increased in Massachusetts since 1866.

In common conversation, aphorisms sometimes dropped
from Mr. Silver's lips:

" Tell me what a man laughs at, and I will tell you what
kind of a man he is."

" The element in a man which makes him feel humiliated
by poverty is the same element which makes him feel elated
by riches. In both cases he puts the emphasis on the wrong
thing."

" When a Christian meets a man on the street his first
thought is. What can I do for you? When a non-Christian
meets a man on the street his first thought is. What can I get
out of you? "

Mr. Silver, like all clergymen, touched the world in un-
expected ways outside his parish. He received repeated

214 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

invitations from a New Churchman employed by Cheney
Brothers, silk manufacturers in South Manchester, Connecti-
cut, to come and preach in their Chapel. Mr. Cheney at its
head had established permission to those imder him for the
expression of all creeds, and he entertained Mr. Silver with
cordial hospitality on his visit in the year 1880.

In the seventies, Mr. Silver received from Mr. Edmond
de Chazal his photograph with a friendly message on the
back in French. This greeting came from the tiny picturesque
African island of Mauritius, twenty-three by thirty-six miles;
and the spontaneous gift sent half way round the globe
shows how the New-Church Messenger, as intermediary, makes
us all brethren. Of French blood, Mr. de Chazal was bom
on the island in 1809, lived seven years in Europe, and re-
turned permanently to Mauritius. In 1835 he married Mile.
Claire Rouillard; both were reared Roman Catholics, but
united in accepting our faith. He employed a thousand
laborers from India on his sugar plantation, and made his
home a social and religious center. He preserved his lamp
of spiritual truth, zealously spread its light around, and
found assistants among his twelve children for handing it
down {New-Church Review, October, 1919, pp. 536-559).

Roxbury Church members have extended their activities
beyond our borders. Six have served as presidents of the
Massachusetts New-Church Woman's Alliance. They have
been installed in our Book-Rooms, one remaining thirty-two
years. They ser\'e as pianist and superintendent of the Lynn
Neighborhood House; the latter has been elected presiding
officer of the National Sunday School Conference in 1918.

About the year 1879, Mr. Silver suggested to the Roxbury
Society the calling of a younger man as assistant minister.
The Rev. Duane Vinton Bowen was selected, and began his
ministrations in 1880. He had preached about fifteen years
as a Unitarian clergyman, entering our Theological School
in 1878, and espousing our faith by ordination in 1880.
His sermons had simplicity of explanation, sincerity of pur-
pose, and high appeal.

At Mr. Silver's last administration of the Holy Communion
in his own church, as he lifted his hand over the consecrated

Rev. Abiel Silt

Monsieur Edoiiard de Chazal of Mauritius

Reverend Julian K. Smyth in 1882

Rev. Julian K. Sniyth in IHW

Ednah C. Silver in 1877

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 215

bread there came momentarily into his face a perfectly bea-
tific expression never seen there before. It made my heart
stand still, and I whispered to myself, "We shall not keep
him long." Shortly after, his life ended suddenly by acci-
dental drowning at the close of a much-occupied Sunday,
March 27, 1881.

The Rev. John Worcester gave a beautiful address at the
obsequies. A Unitarian clergyman present commented later
on the bright color of the tributary flowers, and on the inde-
finable absence of depressing gloom, and continued:

" The services were calm, sweet, elevating, as becometh
the New-Church faith; and, as to Mr. Worcester's address,
its simplicity was sublime, and the Lord's Prayer seemed the
only fitting close."

Mrs. Silver survived her husband eleven years, and en-
joyed Rev. Julian K. Smyth's ministrations in Roxbury for
a decade, attending church services regularly until sixteen
days before her departure, when nearing her ninety-fourth
year. I never knew whether she preferred Mr. Silver's simple
church services, or the richer and more enlarged forms of
his successor; she did not say, but I conjecture that she loved
the welfare of the Roxbury Society more than she loved the
ways of her husband ; and I do know that she stood constantly
behind the young preacher strengthening his hands.

And the Smyths were kind in return. We learned, that
however small to nothingness a geometrical center may be,
a Roxbury parish center is large enough to hold the Smyths
and ourselves with ease. The Old Regime and the New
Regime were warm friends.

With the briefest illness, and no pain, Mrs. Silver passed
from this life. Mr. John Worcester, at the Golden Wedding
of the Silvers had suggested a golden marriage hereafter in
the golden city. And you remember Charles Kingsley's words
regarding his own happy marriage, written by himself to be
placed on a cross over the graves of his wife and himself:

"Amavimus, Amamus, Amabimus."

(We have loved, we love, we shall love.)

Among many things which I believe about the other world,
I will mention two :

216 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

I believe that my father and mother are making a little
home together somewhere.

And I believe that they sometimes speak about me.

I append a dream once experienced by Mrs. Silver:

"She thought that she was in a boat crossing the ocean
of life. The winds and waves were tempestuous, and alarm-
ing peril seemed imminent. As she finally drew near the
opposite shore, friends were visible, leaning forward and
watching with intense eagerness her arrival.

"Approaching still nearer, she saw the Lord standing among
them, with an expression of benign and ineffable compas-
sion on His face. Looking more closely, she perceived in
His hand a cord hitherto invisible which was attached to her
boat. Then she knew that he had been her ever present help
from the beginning."

And He led them safely on (Psalms, Ixxvii, 53).

IX

THE PERSONNEL OF THE NEW CHURCH

The coveted opportunity came at last. It occurred in
May, 1889, in a recreative interval between sessions of the
General Convention of the New Jerusalem held at Washing-
ton, D. C. There sat the Rev. Chauncey Giles on the deck
of a small Potomac steamer en route for Mount Vernon. In
spite of his great social popularity, he was for the moment
unoccupied. He had seen much of the New Church abroad,
and I wished to compare the audiences which I had seen at
three or four places in London with those in the United States.
And I remember that he analyzed our own, saying that teach-
ers formed a large element; and that the professions of law
and medicine were generously represented. This chapter
therefore will include detached sketches of members of our
general body, that we may see what type of person is at-
tracted toward our faith.

I

And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,

Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.

—King Henry VI, Part II, ii, 4.

Edward Gilpin, Chief Justice of Delaware, held a position
of esteem in a little state that has produced the Rodneys,
Claytons, Bayards, and Judge George Gray. Mr. Gilpin rose
from the position of lawyer, through that of the Attorney-
Generalship, to the highest legal office in the gift of the
state. A court decision by him involving the death penalty
occurred while we lived in Wilmington. The condemned man
had attempted robbery in the house of Mrs. Chambers, a
familiar center for charming musicales, which brought the

218 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

tragedy quite close to us. The maid-servant was nearly mur-
dered by the house-breaker, in her valiant defence of the
family silver; and those present at the trial were strongly
impressed by the fervor of Chief Justice Gilpin's address to
the prisoner, who was a colored man. There was in it a
pathos that was strongly humane and Christian. The culprit
was clearly convicted, chiefly from circumstantial evidence;
and the law enjoined capital punishment; a difficult position

— that of Judge — for a man of much tenderness of heart.
He was devotedly attached to his two daughters, and on

the transition to another world of the elder, he grew ten
years older in a day. He loved the secluded apartment of
his wife, a semi-invalid, who radiated sunshine from within.
She had been cradled in the New Church; he had been reared
a Quaker; but he came to see the value both of our faith,
and of the sacraments; and, when nearing sixty years of
age, at the side of his wife's reclining chair, he received
baptism in devout humility at the hand of my father. Later,
he read aloud the Scriptures at a series of informal house
gatherings for religious study and conference, and he other-
wise aided the Society's success. He became a warm per-
sonal friend of Rev. Willard H. Hinkley — formerly a lawyer

— who was ordained into the ministry at thirty-four by Rev.
Abiel Silver in 1865, and who became successor of the latter
in the Wilmington pulpit.

Chief Justice Mason of the Superior Court of Massachu-
setts had not quite attained the Scriptural three score years
and ten in the year 1905. His last audible utterance on
earth gave the key to his character. He said that his vacation
was ended, that his associates had kindly given him all the
time that they could spare, and that he must get up, and go
to his work. He expected to recover. He had revealed
earlier his solid estimate of the meaning of life, and his
own half unconscious standard, when Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes was about to leave the Supreme Court of Massachu-
setts for the Supreme Court at Washington. At the public
gathering in honor of the departing guest. Justice Mason
gave this felicitous tribute:

Chief Justice Albert Mason

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 219

" We know no man weU until we know him in his calling,
for one's vocation is much more than the instrument by which
he secures support for himself and those dependent on him.
In it he makes the most complete manifestation of the true
quality of his life that he can make in this world." * This
quite reminds us of Swedenborg's statement that the life
of charity which is to act justly and sincerely in every func-
tion, business and work, from a heavenly origin, is the life
which leads to heaven {Heaven and Hell, No. 535).

At twenty-five, young Mason entered the Civil War for
three years. As regimental and brigade quartermaster, he
was exempt from active fighting, but volunteered for the
assault on Port Hudson. In an unfavorable turn in affairs,
he realized the need of rations for his brigade on their with-
drawal. Under a shower of rifle balls, " by sudden sallies,
by creeping, by climbing over fallen timber, followed at all
times by the fire of the enemy, he succeeded in withdrawing
without injury, brought up his supply train, and had rations
ready for the troops when they came out from the line of
battle" (pp. 13, 14).*

Resuming law for nine years after the war, Mr. Mason
opened an office in Boston in 1874, was appointed to the
Bench of the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1882, and
became Chief Justice in 1890. Late in life he declined a
promotion to the Supreme Court of the State.

He gave college education to daughters as well as sons;
and Miss Martha Mason fills worthily the position as Prin-
cipal of the Waltham School for Girls.

Fifteen members of the bar — Messrs Badger, Bartlett,
Cowley, Dunbar, French, Greenough, Hammond, Jones, Lord,
Mayberry, Nay, Morse, Pillsbury and Sugre, ending with
Attorney-General Parker — took part in the posthumous
Mason testimonial heretofore mentioned. The lawyers keenly
appreciated him. Observe their tributes:

" He was content to be the Judge, and never sought to try
the case for one counsel or the other, nor to get into the jury

* From Proceedings of the Suffolk Bar and Superior Court in memory of
Albert Mason, Chief Justice of the Superior Court, June 16, 1905, 44 pp.
Boston, George H. Ellis Co., Printers, 272 Congress St., 1905.

220 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

box. ... He was not wholly free from the spirit of combat;
and his keen eyes would flash with appreciation of the sharp
thrust and parry." But:

" The young man who went before him with a motion, and
had neglected to observe some rule of the court, or had not
paid attention to some statute that he ought to have known
bore on the point, was never met with sharp retort or sar-
castic observation. He was never sent out of the court with
his face flaming, and a feeling that he had made a fool of
himself" (pp. 19, 20, 24).

Albert E. Pillsbury says of Mason's religion:

" He lived and thought on a higher level than is permitted
to most of human kind. ... He had the spirituality, and
perhaps some of the mysticism, of the church of his affec-
tion. ... So permeated was he wuth this impalpable essence
that his whole life and conduct seemed to be the outward and
visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It illumined
him. It radiated from him."

Judge Mason discovered the New Church in 1857, the
year of his marriage to Lydia Phinney Whiting, who shared
his discipleship during his remaining forty-eight years. His
magazine articles included The Ministry from the Layman's
Point of View, The Use of Clubs, Wealth and Progress, The
Divine Law of Use in its Application to Industrial Problems,
and Patience in Social Reform.

At his obsequies in 1905, the bench and bar were well
represented, and the Rev. James Reed's address sympatheti-
cally earnest.

Many of the good Chief Justice's fellow-pilgrims in the
New Church knew and loved him in the mellow ripeness of
his late years, when a certain childlike ingenuousness — the
wisdom of innocence — convinced us that he had been in the
world, but not of it.

Albert W. Paine has been called " the Nestor of the Penob-
scot bar." His book, Paine Genealogy, Ipswich Branch,
1881, reveals the lawyer's clever reasoning in his able hand-
ling of circumstantial evidence.

Is character founded on heredity? Did Albert draw the

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 221

energy of his ninety-five years from his great-great-great-
great-great-grandfather, William Paine, who sailed from Eng-
land in the ship Increase in 1635? Grants of Massachusetts
acres gratified his British land hunger. In return, he labored
to ensure unrestricted navigation for the Hudson, by free-
ing it from the Dutch. Arriving here the year before Har-
vard's birth, he established the first endowed Free School,
whose income of $330.00 was still alive in 1879; you could
visit the Paine Schoolhouse in 1881 at the mouth of the
Ipswich River. William Paine and Gov. John Winthrop es-
tablished the Lynn and Braintree Iron Works which were
exempted from taxation on condition of their furnishing
means for " instructing their workmen in knowledge of God."
Paine was a " sincere professor of religion," and Winthrop's
piety was beyond question. William's son John received a
land grant on condition that he should settle twenty families
near Ipswich, and then procure and maintain " a Godly and
Orthodox ministry there."

William, Jr., of the fourth generation, when eighty-three,
marched with his sons and grandsons to Cambridge to present
them for service to Gen. Washington in 1775. He returned
to Mansfield, and used his "king's arms" valiantly against
the howling wolves around his home.

William Paine, third, exhibited emphasis of character in
the form of serious convictions. He clung to his religious
standards. ^Hienever the bass viol was played to augment
the music in his church he instantly quitted the building.
He " would not sit and hear the fiddle scraped in the house
of God." He was scrupulous to tenacity in his business ethics.
On buying a farm he gave his notes payable. When they be-
came due, the Continental currency had sunk in value nearly
to zero; but he kept his promise "to the letter," and paid
100 per cent.

Wliat are the prominent Paine traits in these seven genera-
tions? Many omitted incidents reveal the dynamic energy,
the stirring initiative, the quest of adventure, needful in early
frontier life.

And always, a strong impetus to action; intelligence
applied to use; public spirit; and conscientious convictions.

222 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Having built a pedigree pedestal, we will now place on it the
central figure of this narrative.

Albert Ware Paine (1812-1907) was born in Winslow,
Maine, on the Kennebec. His parents, members of the Con-
gregational Church, extended free and welcome entertain-
ment to all clergymen. Their pew for worship was seldom
less than full, and they represented that nearly extinct species
that went constantly to church, and considered storm and
cold as affording no excuse for non-attendance, but as an
incentive in the opposite direction.

A graduate of Waterville College, now called Colby, just
across the Kennebec from his home, young Albert Paine
in 1835 removed to Bangor on the picturesque Penobscot,
and was admitted the same year to the bar, where he did large
service. In 1853 he pleaded before the Supreme Court at
Washington. He served at home as Bank Examiner, and
Commissioner on State Insurance and Taxes. His most dis-
tinctive work, covering many years, was the procurement of
an Act permitting parties accused of crime to testify before
the jury in their own behalf. Through petitions in the Maine
legislature and the Massachusetts press, he saw it established
by our Congress, and rejoiced at its adoption by the British
Parliament.

Mr. Paine discovered the New Church in 1834 through
Rev. Henry A. Worcester, then a young bachelor and Yale
alumnus. In 1840 occurred the marriage of Albert Paine
and Miss Mary Jane Hale. Their daughter, Miss Selma
Paine, contributed a volume of valuable verse issued in 1907.
As seen at our earlier Conventions with her silver hair, lily
complexion, delicately chiseled lips, and white raiment, she
had to my vision a flower-like delicacy full of ethereal grace.

Albert Paine enriched the New Church in Bangor during
seventy-two years, living until ninety-five. He is described
by one of his descendants as " entirely devoted, heart and
intellect, to the teachings of Swedenborg."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 223

H

I do come with words as medicinal as true.

— The Winter's Tale, II, iii, 35.

Dr. August Negendank, homeopathic physician of Wilm-
ington, Delaware, was born at Giistrow, in Mecklenburg-
Schwerin, in 1823. He quitted this home in 1849, the very
year that witnessed the departure from Germany of the lib-
eral-minded Carl Schurz, and the radical Louis Prang; also,
from the doctor's own duchy, the fiery Carl Zerrahn; and we
entertained a semi-conjecture that the Negendank lungs might
also have desired a Republican atmosphere. After 1871,
I was curious as to his attitude toward the Franco-Prussian
war. I had been in Berlin when Bismarck was making stirring
speeches; from there to Rome, where the civil power of Pope
Piux ix was somewhat precariously upheld by French bayo-
nets; and earlier to Paris, where Louis Napoleon had made
it the gayest of cities. But there was a lurid counter-glow
of volcanic fire beneath; largely concealed, but very much
alive. I saw the Emperor on July 18th, 1868, when all ve-
hicles were stopped by officers, as out of the Tuilleries gate
he came in the Imperial carriage; its wheels, in passing,
almost touching our wheels. The people cheered slightly, he
saluted indifferently, with a countenance utterly impassive,
inscrutable, sphinx-like.

Dr. Negendank was a true-blue American, but he loved
the Vaterland which had given him medical training at the
"Klinik" at Kiel, Holstein; he continued his studies in the
Philadelphia College of Medicine, and in association with
Dr. Hering. Already a New Churchman, he removed in 1854
to Wilmington, Delaware, for nearly fifty years' residence;
building up a large practice, organizing the physicians of his
own school, and aiding to found the first Homeopathic hos-
pital in the city. He was at once made physician-in-chief,
and dean of its training school, both of which offices he held
until his death.

The Doctor's metaphysical mind enabled him to defend the

224 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

writings of Henry James, Sr., in which he took great delight.*
Widely read, and with a keen and genial sense of humor to-
gether with mental stimulus which he brought to his patients,
they were strongly tempted to recover slowly, and enjoy him
the longer.

Dr. John Ellis, according to his pedigree book, was de-
scended from Richard Ellis, a Welsh officer under Cromwell,
whose descendants had a becoming desire to be right, and
were often decided theologians with very positive opinions
regarding salvation, damnation, infant sprinkling, immer-
sion, predestination, and foreordination. In 1745 the Ellises
took root in Ashfield, Massachusetts. The serious earnest-
ness of those days is shown by names bestowed on the maidens
in the Ellis family, as follows: Remember, Experience, De-
sire, Thankful, Patience, Grateful, Submit, Prudence, and
Consider. The names Amiable, and Wealthy, are less som-
bre. Remember married Ebenezer Smith " who, at nineteen,
had been strikingly converted from the fear to the love of
God."

" There being no minister or magistrate at Ashfield on the
wedding day, the groom took the bride behind him on horse-
back, and, guided by marked trees, rode from Ashfield to
Deerfield to have the ceremony performed. His father,
Chileab Smith, went before them on another horse with his
gun, to guard them from the Indians."

Chileab's log dwelling-house was surmounted by a tower
pierced with port holes for armed men to guard against
tomahawks. It was surrounded by a stockade twelve feet
high, enclosing eighty-one square rods, constructed of bullet-
proof upright logs. Is it strange that the young bridegroom
Ebenezer lived to fight the battles of the Lord with amazing
energy, resolute will, and high consecration of purpose, bear-
ing " one of the sanctified names in the Baptist denomina-
tion"?

* All people are not thus endowed. A critic was once asked to review a
treatise by Henry James on The Secret of Swedenborg. He grappled with
it in vain, and finally took revenate on its incomprehensibility by saying that
he guessed that Swedenborg would keep his secret, for there was no danger
of its leaking out through Henry James.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 225

Dr. John Ellis, born in 1815, settled in Detroit in 1846,
and his success with cholera in the epidemic year of 1849,
drew public attention. He held a Chair in the Homeopathic
College of New York City, with William Cullen Bryant as
Honorary President. He was a New Churchman forty-eight
years, and bequeathed $30,000.00 for New-Church uses here,
and 110,000.00 for distributing Swedenborg's works in Italy
in the language of that country.

HI

And stUl they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.

— Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

Professor Truman Henry Safford, when less than three
years of age, manifested a marked gift for mathematics; at
six, he could make remarkable arithmetical calculations; at
eight, he had entered on the study of algebra, geometry, trig-
onometry and astronomy; at ten, "he could multiply men-
tally one row of fifteen figures by another of eighteen, in a
minute or less, according to the testimony of the Rev. H. W.
Adams, who put him through a grueling three hours' exami-
nation." He was one among five lightning calculators, the
others being Ampere, Bixton, the elder Bidder, and Gauss,
who have shown high all-around mental ability.*

Professor Safford was born in Vermont in 1836, was
graduated from Harvard in 1854, and received a Ph.D.
from Williams in 1878. Regarding the breadth of his voca-
tional work, I have consulted Professor Frank W. Very — a
well-equipped judge, since he has had large opportunities
along similar lines, having been connected with the Westwood
Observatory, Mass., since 1906, and for seventeen years at
the Allegheny Observatory associated with Professor Samuel
P. Langley in his unveiling of the invisible rays of the infra-
red spectrum, as well as in the experiments which led to

* Lightning Calculators. A study in the Psychology of Harnessing the Sub-
conscious. By H. Addington Bruce, McClure's, September, 1912. See pp.
589-596.

226 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

aviation. Professor Very writes me under date of Febru-
ary 28, 1918:

"In reply to your letter ... on Professor Saflford, I
would say that, though he was noteworthy as a mathematical
genius, his attainments were by no means confined to the
mathematical side of astronomy. Bond's great work on the
Orion nebula in the Annals of Harvard College Observatory-
owes much of its merit to the careful editing of Safford, then
a young man; for Bond had in the meantime passed from
the scene of his earthly labors."

We now come to Professor Safford's work elsewhere. In
1863 came an opportunity before the public to buy from
Clark in Cambridge the largest and best refracting telescope
in the world at that time, with an aperture of eighteen and
three-fourths inches, and a focal length of twenty-three feet
and two inches. The Chicago Astronomical Society purchased
it, and in 1866, an Observatory to house it was furnished by
Mr. J. Young Scammon, who gave it the name of Dearborn
Observatory.

Professor Safford was called from the east, and became
Director of the Observatory at its opening, Mr. Scammon
furnishing his salary.* " The first thing Safford did was
to discover one hundred and eight new nebulae." Every-
thing proved excellent except the increasingly unworkable
revolving dome, which difficulty Professor Safford solved
by using the telescope for zone work with a fixed dome, and
observed three thousand stars in a southern zone. The great
Chicago fire of 1871 bankrupted the financial resources of
the Observatory, and this ended Safford's observations and
discoveries.

Professor in the Chicago University from 1866, Safford
submitted his report on March 16, 1874, giving the mean
declinations of nine hundred and eighty-one stars for Janu-
ary, 1875. After filling a government position in the United
States Coast and Geodetic survey for two years, he went in
1876 to Williams College, Massachusetts, as mathematical

* For Safford and Scammon, see Popular Astronomy, vol. xxiv. No. 8, p. 475,
The Semi-Centennial of the Dearborn Observatory, by Philip Fox, October,
1916. Also, The New Church and Chicago, 1906, pp. 26, 27.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 227

astronomer and teacher for the remaining twenty-five years
of his life.

Professor Safford, having accepted the tenets of the New
Church, joined the Boston Society in 1857. His printed views
on church music and ritual were characterized by reverent
and devotional feeling.

Professor Theophilus Parsons writes regarding his grand-
father Moses Parsons, an Orthodox parson of Byfield, Massa-
chusetts, that on a salary not exceeding eighty pounds a year,
payable partly in silver and partly in produce, he sent three
of his five sons to Harvard, and maintained also for his
wife and two daughters a comfortable and hospitable home.
Back of his church stipend was his large farm; and his virile
energy was matched by his moral courage,

Theophilus, son of Moses, born in the Byfield farmhouse
erected in 1703, came fairly by his intellectual ambition.
After Harvard came the law with a brilliant beginning at
Falmouth, now called Portland, Maine. The burning of the
town by the British in 1775, although a rude interruption
to his labors, proved a blessing in disguise. On returning
to Byfield, he gained immediate access to one of the finest
law libraries in America, that of Judge Trowbridge, who
was then under the Parsons roof, from which he gathered
a vast amount of learning. Becoming a lawyer in Newbury-
port, he declared that the finest suit he ever gained was when
he won his wife. John Quincy Adams and Robert Treat
Paine studied under him; and Judge Joseph Story declared
him to be head and shoulders taller than any one in the
state. In 1806 he became Chief Justice of the supreme ju-
dicial court of Massachusetts.

Professor Theophilus Parsons of the Boston Society of the
New Jerusalem, grandson of the educationally ambitious
parson, and son and biographer of the classically trained chief
justice, was born in the spacious paternal mansion in New-
buryport, built in 1789 and still visible on Green and Wash-
ington Streets, the grounds filling a whole square. In 1800,
the little Theophilus, aged three, went with the family to
Boston, and grew up in a stimulating atmosphere. As a

228 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

lawyer he wrote valuable books pertaining to his field, and he
filled for twenty-two years the chair of Dane Professor of
Law at Harvard, his Alma Mater.

In 1869, Mr. Charles W. Eliot, then thirty-five, became
president of Harvard, surrounding himself with young work-
ers, and introducing the elective system as an aid in the deter-
mination of studies. Professor Parsons, who was then seventy-
two, resigned his position in 1870 questioning whether this
new method would conduce to stiff mental discipline, and to
the production of vigorous mental fibre. Those who have
followed the system down to President Lowell's day can
judge whether Professor Parsons's remarks had a gleam of
prophecy.

His method of reasoning is shown in his ISew Jerusalem
Magazine article (vol. v. No. 5) entitled Sivedenhorgs States-
manship and the Charge of Insanity; also in his book on The
Infinite and the Finite (1872) where he presents a clear-cut
demarcation between the realms and methods of reasoning on
the natural plane below, and those on the plane of spiritual
thought above.

In 1823 Mr. Parsons married the accomplished Catharine
Amory Chandler, of great beauty as a bride, but more beauti-
ful at her Golden Wedding. The Rev. James Reed gives us
another aspect of her:

" She had a bright, original mind, great good sense, a keen
possession of humor, ready wit, evenness of temper, and a
depth of reserve unsuspected."

The Professor's daughter, Emily Elizabeth, sprang to her
country's aid. At the outbreak of the Civil War she entered
on an arduous year of training as an army nurse. She next
volunteered her services, and was led into positions of great
responsibility, from hospital work at Fort Schuyler, to a
Vicksburg steamer. She was our guest in New York, and we
had a glimpse of her motherly spirit — tender, but resolute.
In the rough barracks on Blackwell's Island, her little cham-
ber, partitioned off in a corner, was open at the top. Here,
in her warm wrapper, she was alert to hear the faintest cry
of distress. She was also alert to hear any bad words from
the soldiers; on discovery, she would march straight to their

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 229

bedside, and threaten them with expulsion from her ward.
It was sufficient: they loved her for her great heart; and they
learned — sometimes for life — good speech and good man-

Rudolph Tafel was not yet sixteen on reaching America;
but with his scholastic training, he soon found his level.
In 1854, at the age of twenty-three, he became Librarian of
the U. S. Naval Academy; in 1855, Professor of Modem
Languages at the Maryland State College, St. John's; in 1862
he accepted the Chair of Modern Languages and Comparative
Philology at the Washington University at St. Louis; his able
philosophical thesis brought him the Tiibingen degree of
Ph.D., whereupon he was admitted to Societies for Oriental
and Philological research.

How was Rudolph Tafel fitted for work involving ready
knowledge of several tongues? His father. Dr. Leonard
Tafel, at Ulm, Germany, was a celebrated teacher of classical
and modern languages in the Royal College, and he trained
the lad to be a fine linguist.

From his cradle, little Rudolph was reared in the New
Church, and was stimulated, mentally and spiritually, by his
uncle Immanuel Tafel, Librarian and Professor of Philosophy
at Tubingen University.

During Rudolph's twenty years here, the most important
event was his appointment in 1869, bestowed after New
Churchman had expressed serious consideration regarding
the condition of Swedenborg's niss. deposited in the Royal
Library at Stockholm. These precious documents were suf-
fering from the ravages of time, and in danger from destruc-
tion by fire. Many were untranslated, and some were even
unpublished. They must not only be preserved, but repro-
duced in fac simile. Picture Professor Tafel's alacrity in
espousing their guardianship, when Convention gave him a
commission to Stockholm, having secured the sympathetic
Cooperation of the English New-Church Conference. Mr.
Tafel entered with great energy on his work, which was
endorsed afresh after his reports. He conscientiously scru-
tinized every letter in the photo-lithographed copy of the un-

230 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

published mss., the resulting work of which filled ten huge
folio volumes.

Completing this great work, he discovered another; he
would collect all possible documentary evidence concerning
Swedenborg himself. He at once enlisted the service of
librarians, and advertised through the Swedish press for
private letters giving the desired information. He sought
out Swedenborg's ancestry; he obtained glimpses of his
student University life; he discovered his Journals of travel;
he gained access to records at the Court of Appeals; he
weighed his financial resources and expenditures; he examined
his official reports in the Royal School of Mines; he read his
speeches filed in the archives of the rigsdag (parliament);
he caught fleeting views of his social life; he studied Bishop
Swedberg's parochial and diocesan career as bearing on his
distinguished son's story. The territory which all these facts
covered included the lower one-third of Sweden itself; and
all this evidence was carefully sifted; and the value of the
witnesses searchingly scrutinized. This material was trans-
lated, systematized, extensively annotated by Mr. Tafel, and,
after eight years, published in London in 1875-1877 in three
folio volumes comprising in all 1382 quarto pages. To us
who have long had companionship with these Documents Con-
cerning Swedenborg in our libraries, Mr, Tafel's work looms
up as a matter for intense gratitude.

Rudolph Tafel in his boyhood at Ulm used to visit his uncle,
Dr. Gottlob Tafel at Stuttgart. In 1869, when honors were
thick upon him, he visited it again to claim his accomplished
cousin Emilie Tafel as his bride. My most pleasant ac-
quaintance with her is epistolary; and I hereby thank her
heartily for furnishing from London exact data for this
sketch.

When I read Rudolph Tafel's book upon the Lord's Prayer,
I felt as if I were riding on a placid lake where the plummet
is sometimes dropped deep ; and when, after his ordination, we
heard his sermon in New York from Isa. xxxiii. 20, we were
lifted into the heights, where we caught a rapturous glimpse
of Jerusalem as a tabernacle which shall not be taken down;
and we were inspired to strengthen its stakes and cords.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 231

Rudolph Tafel spent the last twenty-three years of his life
in serving the London Camden Road pulpit, strengthened by
the religious devotion of his wife. He wrote extensively for
the Church, was appointed to higher offices, won warm friends,
and tranquilly approached that brief sleep which men call
death.

Rudolph Tafel's brother Louis received New-Church ordi-
nation in 1869; his father, Leonard, in 1871, his nephew,
Walter Winfred Tafel, in 1913; Rudolph's brother-in-law,
Fedor Goerwitz, in 1879, becoming, from Zurich, Switzerland,
missionary on the continent of Europe; Fedor's elder son,
Emanuel Goerwitz, ordained in 1899, was short-lived; his
younger son, Adolph Ludwig Goerwitz, is his successor in
church work abroad.

Dr. Thomas Moses (1836-1917) was both surgeon and
pedagogue, the latter vocation filling the larger number of
years. After his birth, his little barque was moored for a
good many years in the excellent harbor of Bath, Maine,
before venturing elsewhere on the voyage of life. Reared
under New-Church influences at home, young Moses went
to Bowdoin College at seventeen for the full course. He loved
study, and joined a Greek Letter Society, but his boyish auto-
graph epistles which lie before me reveal elasticity and
exuberance of spirit with a sense of fun. Once he was
decoyed into willing absence from class lessons. The boys
often tried to entrap him again. At one time he escaped
through the window, slid down the lightning rod, and arrived
in time. He was a studious student.

Thomas Moses graduated from Bowdoin in 1857, and indi-
cated his choice of a vocation by entering the Jefferson
Medical College at Philadelphia. Here he received his
degree. His summer in London in 1859 was rich in oppor-
tunity at Guy's Hospital, one of the three largest in the city.
Returning to America, he spent a year in Bellevue Hospital,
New York, recrossing the Atlantic for London in 1861. He
next crossed the channel to France, and found apartments
in a mighty interesting part of Paris near Notre Dame.

A breath of fresh and grateful New-Church life reached

232 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Dr. Moses in vacation time when there entered his apartments
one day Mr. (afterwards Rev.) Frank Sewall, who had played
with him as a boy in Bath, who had shared Bowdoin College
life with him for three years, and who now came flushed with
delight over his month with enthusiasts of his own religious
faith at Saint-Amand-Mont-Rond. This is a small town, in-
cluded in the ancient and fascinating province of Aquitaine,
the romance country where Richard Coeur de Lion engaged in
singing songs, writing verses, and leading tournaments. St.
Amand was the home of Mr. J. F. S. Le Boys des Guays — a
judge, and a writer on Roman law, — a New Churchman, an
enthusiastic distributor of the new light, and as unchanging
in his devotion as the north star. Here young Moses received
cordial hospitality also.

The year of young Moses in Paris, from which he writes
enthusiastically of the Sorbonne, was but preparatory for his
work in our Civil War. For him the transition was great from
the hoary hospitals of Europe, carefully systematized and
tranquilly administered in times of peace, to hospital work on
ship board in a tumultuous war, where medical service was
in a degree improvised to meet unexpected and constantly
shifting conditions.

We first find him on the sailing vessel Euterpe, having two
hundred and fifty-three sick men on board, with a shortage
of nurses and inadequate aid elsewhere. He is surgeon-in-
chief, steward, and paymaster, in fact, if not in name. His
last ship, the United States Troop Transport, the Connecticut,
is a Hudson River boat, very large, and with fine speed. His
greatest charge is eleven hundred wounded from Fredericks-
burg, May 11, 1864. He is content with large opportunity
for service, and small honors. He rejoices over the mili-
tary promotion of his boyhood friend, Tom Hyde, because
"it suits his temperament," and he prophetically declares
that he will some day be a General. During later hospital
work in Washington, Dr. Moses found, in 1867, a treasure of
a wife in Miss Hannah Appleton Cranch. Her father, John
Cranch, was a New-Church artist who spent 1830-1831 in
Rome and Florence.

We now come to a sharp turn in the life of Dr. Moses.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 233

The Rev. Frank Sewall, called in 1870 to the head of the
Urbana University in Ohio, persuaded his old friend to re-
linquish the practice of medicine and surgery, and be his
coworker in education. Prof. Moses remained twenty-six
years at Urbana, instructing in his special branches, physi-
ology and hygiene, and holding classes in Natural Science.
His opportunity for knowledge of the latter field was varied.
Bowdoin furnished Professor Parker Cleaveland, a man of
extraordinary ability in geology; and, by felicity of circum-
stance, Professor Moses was able in 1873 to attend the School
of Natural History founded by Professor Louis Agassiz at
Penikese Island in Buzzard's Bay, and to see the great Swiss
naturalist at the height of his sixty-six years. Dr. Moses
went back to his own pupils, not only a storehouse of new
knowledge, but a human battery surcharged with energy.

The Moses family removed from Urbana to Waltham,
Mass., the Doctor resumed teaching, and added twenty-one
more years to a useful life. The strongest praise I have
heard of him as a pedagogue is his influence on the character
of boys. He followed the young student lads out into life,
throwing a guiding sunlight on to their path, and warning the
atmosphere of their souls. He was a noble New Churchman.

Timothy Otis Paine (1824-1895), was at one time Pro-
fessor of Oriental Languages in our Cambridge Theological
School; and I recall, soon after the arrival in Boston of the
Way Collection of Egyptian Curiosities, the appearance in
the newspapers of Mr. Paine's translation of one of its
ancient hieroglyphic prayers. It was humbly accepted by
the leading journal, which admitted that there was no one in
Boston wise enough to dispute the learned decipherer. Paine
drew crowded audiences to our Theological School of which
he was Semitic professor. Before him lay portions of the
Egyptian Book of the Dead in the ancient picture language
which he readily turned into English, and from which he
drew with ease its teachings on the resurrection and judgment.
His chief study was the Holy Word, and he examined Chaldee,
Syriac, Coptic, and Samaritan tongues together with Talmudic
and Rabbinical lore as far as they might throw light on the

234 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Bible as a Book written in the East. He loved Hebrew; Greek
gave him access to the Septuagint; he was familiar with Latin,
German and Swedish. He possessed Bibles in many tongues.

At twenty-eight he began a nine years' labor in restoring
the Holy Houses of Scripture, assembling materials from I
Kings, vi, vii, and from Ezekiel, xl-xlii. He discovered that
they supplement each other, and he built up from the original
Hebrew a structure representing Solomon's Temple. Adding
the Ark, Tabernacle, etc., he published an edition through
Houghton, Mifflin & Company, at a retail price of twenty
dollars. It contained thousands of Scripture references, and
thirty full-page illustrations.

At thirty-two, Mr. Paine married Agnes Howard, who had
been carefully reared under New-Church influence. At thirty-
six, he received ordination, and gave quiet devotion to his
Elmwood parish for his remaining thirty-five years. The
history of his wife's ancestry is interesting. You may read
how the Indian Chief Ousamequin " hath given, granted, en-
feoff'ed, and sold " certain territory, forty-nine square miles,
afterwards called Bridgewater. He made his mark — a pic-
turesque signature — by laying his hand on the parchment
and tracing its outline. The deputy purchasers. Miles
Standish and others, in good English chirography, bound
themselves for payment, as follows:

" 7 coats, a yard and a half in a coat. 9 Hatchets. 8
Hose. 20 Knives. 4 Moose Skins. 10 yards and a half
of cotton."

John Howard, ancestor of Agnes Howard Paine, was one
of the original settlers of this territory, and the Howard
Genealogical volume before me states that, down the cen-
turies, the Howards intermarried with the Washburnes, Keiths,
Kingsmans, Fobeses, Edsons, Mitchells, and Harrises —
Bridgewater names now associated with the New Church.

Timothy 0. Paine was quaint, reserved, and ingenuous,
with a sensitive, shy sense of humor, and a poetic vein. I
quote from a little volume of 89 pages of verse, issued in
1897. The poem on the Wren begins:

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 235

Little chubby, twittering wren,
In the eastern home again
Soon wik build the hasty bed
Round the gray old barn or shed, —
In a mortise of a brace,
Bluebird box, or other place
Large enough for bumblebee,
Or, my feather-ball, for thee.
Wonder if you, little pest,
Still fill up the bluebird's nest
Now with straw, and now with twig.
Till the hole is not so big
As the bluebird's darling head;
Stealing from her her sweet bed,
Forcing her to work for you
A whole precious day or two? —

CHILDREN OF HEAVEN
In Heaven we shall be children again;
Children of One from children of twain.

None but children shall come into Heaven ;
Children of seventy, children of seven.

So it is said, and so it is sung:

As we grow older we shall grow young.

In Mr. Paine's poem entitled Measure he treats of John's
Apocalyptic vision of the Holy City (Rev. xxi: 16, 17) where
the length, breadth and height were equal — "the measure of
a man, that is, of an angel." And, after his transition to a
higher life, loving friends placed over his forest grave a
large symbolic granite cube.

Marshall Freeman Josselyn, Professor of Romance Lan-
guages in the Boston University, touched life on many sides.

When in 1882 the Rev. Julian K. Smyth accepted the pulpit
of the Roxbury, Massachusetts, Church of the New Jerusalem,
Mr. Josselyn was an eager-hearted lad of sixteen, with
youth's capacity for hero-worship, which found expression
through his membership of the Pastor's Aid where he worked

236 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

zealously in envelope-addressing together with hymn-copying
and other clerical work for the Magnificat.

His eagerness for spiritual knowledge showed itself when
Mr. Smyth instituted a class for the study of Discrete De-
grees illustrated by charts; and in a still more marked degree
when the Theological School kindly opened its doors to the
public. As a member of crowded audiences for instruction
by Rev. T. 0. Paine in the Egyptian " Book of the Dead,"
young Josselyn entered into the subject with ardor, taking
voluminous notes, and fairly warming the atmosphere with
his enthusiasm.

As Sunday-School librarian, he easily captured the hearts
of the children, as a Sunday-School teacher he quite as easily
won the loyalty of the older lads, as a flute player he joined
the Roxbury Fraternity orchestra, and gladly gave his Sim-
day evenings to the religious gatherings for young people.
At twenty-two years of age he received the rite of confirma-
tion, being one of a group of twelve persons — half of them
on the threshold of life — who, on April 1, 1888, took upon
themselves the vows of the Church under the ministration of
Mr. Smyth.

Mr. Josselyn was healthy-toned, well-balanced, and pos-
sessed a keen sense of fun. In our social gatherings his
private theatricals, his imaginary talk through the telephone,
his assumption of the role of a rustic school boy before a
blackboard, were replete with delicious and unexpected turns
of thought. He possessed the elastic spirit of gaiety, and the
true heart for comradeship.

The attempt at a business career followed Mr. Josselyn's
graduation from the Boston Latin School, but his gifts and
preferences lay in other directions. On the completion of his
course at the Boston University in the Class of 1898 he went
immediately abroad and entered upon advanced studies in
the Romance Languages, receiving in 1900 the degree of
Docteur de rUniversite de Paris. His thesis appeared in
print the same year, and was a study of Italian phonetics
under the most eminent of living teachers in that line, the
Abbe Rousselot of the Institut Catholique. For this work he
was made Maitre de Phonetique in the latter institution,

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 237

Rousselot declaring him the most brilliant student that had
ever taken work with him. A joint commission of the five
academic bodies composing the Institute of France further
bestowed upon Mr. Josselyn for the above work the French
equivalent of the German Ph.D., and awarded him a prize of
five hundred francs.

Shortly after this, Dr. Josselyn became Assistant Pro-
fessor, and later, full Professor, of Romance Languages in
the Boston University, and we enjoyed his enthusiasm over
Camoens and the Lusiad. His course of lectures on Dante
showed the luminous effect of an acquaintance with Sweden-
borg's philosophy of life in interpreting the supreme religious
poet of Italy. In 1904 three Italian societies in this country
made Professor Josselyn their representative at Arezzo in
celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of Petrarch's birth.
In 1907 Professor Josselyn resigned his chair in the Bos-
ton University and went abroad for permanent residence, re-
newing the acquaintance with Europe which he had learned
to love through many sightseeing tours, and a special one on
a traveling scholarship. He and his sister spent several
years in Florence and in Munich, where he was employed
in revising, editing and publishing text-books singly or in
collaboration with others, and receiving special honor from
Professor Flamini, the prince of Dante scholars. He had
practically completed in his last years a translation of that
difficult work. La Vita Nuova.

Returning to America in 1915, he was called to the
higher life early in 1916. The funeral services were im-
pressively rendered by Rev. James Reed and Rev. H. Clinton
Hay in the Boston Church of the New Jerusalem, the earlier
spiritual home of Mr. Josselyn's mother. Several educational
bodies were represented in the audience.

On November 3, 1916, an organ given in memory of Pro-
fessor Josselyn by his devoted sister was dedicated in Jacob
Sleeper Hall of the Boston University. Its noble qualities
were admirably brought out by his faculty colleague. Pro-
fessor John Marshall of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who
played the Allegretto from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony,
bringing out in a masterly manner the passages imbued with

238 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

pathos. Those still remaining of the faculty in Professor
Josselyn's day paid the honor of their presence, Professor
Alexander Hamilton Rice, an intimate colleague of the
deceased, gave in gracious form and heartfelt eloquence a
tribute of discerning appreciation which stirred our hearts.
He dwelt on his true scholar's conscience and his ideal as a
teacher, on his gallant gaiety, and his steady courage.

Sarah Alice Worcester was Professor of Modem Lan-
guages at Urbana University from 1892 to 1899. From it
she had received the degree of A.M. for her thesis in three
languages upon the Nibelungenlied. Spending several years
abroad, she had studied in Paris, Heidelberg, and Spain.
Sacrificing her vacation in the torrid summer of 1900, she
acceded to President Eliot's request, and served in Cam-
bridge as interpreter for the visiting Cuban schoolteachers.
She was firmly intrenched in our faith, and translated Heaven
and Hell into Spanish.

An unusual opportunity came to her in 1903-4 when she
went to Palestine under the auspices of Pere Hyacinthe to
examine the ground for establishing a non-sectarian school
for girls. Moslem influence was too strong, but she came into
acquaintance — through her polyglot tongue — with Oriental
Patriarchs, Arab officials, and foreign consuls.

In vain Sarah Alice's grandfather Jesse Worcester, of the
elder branch in the 1750 Hollis homestead, declared, accord-
ing to one of his grandsons, that he would burn every page
of Swedenborg that came into his house. His fourth son,
Gilman, of Harvard and Andover, translated Swedenborg
diligently, and became the father of Sarah Alice herself, and
of Judge Francis J. Worcester of Harvard, Columbia, and
the New York New-Church Society; Gilman was father also
of Henry of Maiden, Civil War officer, and public-spirited
benefactor of his town. He left a devoted wife and a history-
loving daughter. Jesse's sixth son Henry of Yale entered
our ministry and left twelve Worcester and Swanton descend-
ants in the church fold, from Portland and Westport Island,
Maine, to Washington, D.C. Jesse of Hollis might shake
his head, but his darling fifteenth child, David of Bangor, who

A comer of U orcester House (it Hollts. \en' Hamjishire

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 239

loved Greek and Latin, included also the study of Sweden-
borg. And David's son George, loving laboratory work, and
delighting in Moliere, found time to trim his Jamp of spiritual
truth and hand it down to his Diephuis grandchildren at
Waltham. The indictment of Swedenborg by the conscien-
tious Jesse of Mollis was followed by New-Church baptism
on the head of twenty-five of his descendants.

Miss Abby McGlean, a veritable princess among school-
teachers, was the daughter of Captain McGlean of Ports-
mouth, N.H. The child was reared at an Episcopal hearth-
stone, and came under the sheltering care of Rev. Charles
Burroughs, officiating from 1812 to 1857 at St. John's Church
— an edifice abounding in historical relics- The little Abby
was summoned to church by a belfry bell captured at Louis-
burg in 1745, and recast by Paul Revere. Her parents carried
her to the font of porphyritic marble captured at Senegal,
Africa, in 1758; her baptism vms administered from a
christening bowl of silver presented to the parish in 1732
by Queen Caroline, wife of George II; the rector could use
a copy of the Vinegar Bible, printed in 1717, and could read
from the Revolutionary War Prayer Book, where a petition
for the President was pasted over the prayer for the King.
History was in the air; the edifice was redolent with it.

One day Captain McGlean sailed away from Portsmouth
as was his custom; the ship was lost, and left no discoverable
trace. The tragedy soon carried off the mother, leaving four
little McCleans to the care of two warm-hearted Irish aunts —
quaint little old ladies as I remember them. The child Abby
was fed on Scripture stories, and knew her Bible as few know
it. Education for girls was meagre, and she was sent to the
Exeter Female Academy. This was supplemented by private
instruction from a scholarly uncle, under whose roof she
became an excellent Latin and French scholar. With her
intense power of mental application, her whole life became
a school for self-instruction. She held a private day school
for girls at Wilmington, Del., in her own spacious house.
Out of it had graduated sisters of Thomas Bayard, and
daughters of Judge Milligan. I place her as a peer among

240 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

great teachers from Alcuin, to Arnold, and Agassiz. She did not
teach a forty-year-old Emperor how to write as Alcuin taught
Charlemagne; but she did lead group after group of girls
into the beautiful world of ancient Greece, and made us love
it passionately through life. Her school was like Rugby where
Donald Hankey in A Student in Anns tells us that he learned
that " the classics are literature, not torture."

She began with Sappho, and came down. The recitations
were held on alternate days and were two hours long, but not
too long for us. Miss McClean was not familiar with the
Greek language, and also had another limitation, she desig-
nated Greek divinities by their Latin names. Somehow,
Jupiter sounds vastly less classic than Zeus, Mercury than
Hermes, Venus than Aprodite. She was never afraid of them,
under any guise, and would exclaim :

" Observe the difference in the temper of these two goddes-
ses: Minerva would get so mad she could not speak, Juno so
mad she could not hold her tongue." Miss McClean, fiery-
tempered at times, was like Jove's noble daughter — face scar-
let, lips effectually compressed. Our teacher had the his-
toric spirit, just like John Fiske in his Athenian and American
Life — she made us fairly live, and live vividly, in those
days. I found great comfort in studying the Greek deities.
They are the only persons about whom I can express my mind
freely. The New England conscience prevents unlimited
condemnation of living individuals; but when all possible
evidence is gathered and weighed, I can be the veritable Day
of Judgment over these gods and goddesses. They never
existed, anyway; and moreover, they have no relations living
whose feelings can be hurt. We all loved Minerva, who was
the nearest to a guardian angel of anyone in Greek mythology;
she watched over Ulysses and Telemachus, quickening their
conscience, and stirring their memory to good deeds. One
college president objects to her because she was a celibate:
but she secretly loved romance, and brought about mutual
recognition and understanding between the long-separated
Ulysses and Penelope. It is well to fight shy of some of the
gods, but an honor to have Minerva on your visiting list.

Miss McClean added to her instruction a gratuitous weekly

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 241

evening for Greek dramatic literature, to which attendance
was voluntary. '" The play to-night," she would say, " is The
Seven Chiefs before Thebes, and you need not come unless you
are prepared to tell me the relation of each person in the
drama to every one else." Various playwrights are included
in the course; we are indignant when our dear Socrates is
incarcerated in a basket and hung up in the sky, in The Clouds
by Aristophanes — what way was that to treat a philosopher!
And, swinging back to Homer, we were equally indignant
when Jupiter hung Juno up in the clouds by her wrists, and
attached anvils to her feet — what way was that to treat a
wife!

Miss McClean's school was probably a typical Southern
one. I do not recall any classes in natural science; and
mathematics stopped at aritlmietic. But the Humanities with
her were emphasized, and included good manners, good
epistolary and conversational English, graceful, familiar,
and yet scholarly knowledge of literature and history. Not
only seriousness of spirit, but warm-heartedness, character-
ized her relation to her pupils, whom she held through life
by an invisible tether. Her line of ancestry on one side was
that of Goldsmith, Burke and Sheridan, and she possessed
wit and imagination through her Irish blood. An amuse-
ment called Mental Photographs was in vogue in her day,
wherein persons recorded in their friends' albums their
preferences regarding persons or things. Most of us gave
unimaginative, prosaic, monosyllabic answers — "red,"
" blue," " green," to the question, " What is your favorite
color? " But she replied:

"White for infancy, purple for royalty, and the rest for
the rainbow of circumstance."

To the question of her favorite diversion, she replied:
" Gossip, not scandal, with my friends." At this, my reader
instantly protests. But let us pause a moment. Samuel
Pepys records in his nine years' diary much egotistical gossip
about himself addressed secretly to himself, and revealing
insatiable curiosity about others. And yet the world prizes
it as material for contemporaneous history. Plutarch, priest
of Apollo, biographer, and essayist, is the prince of gossips.

242 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

If he had not walked the streets of Rome, gathering personal
anecdotes, small rumors, and trivial items, about Antony and
Cleopatra, where would Shakespeare's immortal drama have
been? Miss McClean used her observations and comments
on human nature in a large way, and without malice, and
her conversation had color and pungency. Abroad one year,
I observed the increased enjoyment of those who, through
academic training, had an extended knowledge of mythology:
the gods and goddesses were as familiar as one's uncles, cous-
ins and aunts. On my return, I said to Miss McClean:

" I cannot take classical studies at Harvard, but my mother
will devote an entire year's leisure in reading aloud to me
about Greece."

Miss McClean offered to lay out the course, and prescribed
Mahalfy and Felton leading up to a leisurely, sympathetic
study of Homer. It was practically a post-graduate year
under a teacher who vivified the atmosphere about her, and
transferred mental images from her mind to other minds by
means of vivid, telling English. We saiv Greece together a
thousand years before Christ.

I recall her membership, when fifty-seven years of age, of
the Roxbury Society of the New Jerusalem. Having many
preconceived notions to combat, she belonged characteristic-
ally to the Church Militant. She found delight in the Hebrew
prophets with their sublime imagery, wide horizon, and
pathetic aspirations; indeed, her knowledge of Holy Writ
was exceptional even among life-long readers. She recog-
nized its parable structure and enclosed jewels, and loved
Swedenborg's method of Scripture interpretation. She was
nearing her ninetieth year when called hence in 1905. She
was practically blind for years before her transition, her be-
loved books Y/ere beyond her immediate reach, but her re-
ligious fortitude carried her through. Having left the dark-
ened windows of her tenement of clay, she is now enjoying
the radiance which emanates from Him who is the Light of
the higher world.

Anne L. Page loved human flowers, the Immortelles; —
and her life's work — gathering them into kindergartens and

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 243

training them — has been memorialized by Wellesley College.
Her birthplace at Danvers, Massachusetts, is interesting, and
the quaint house is preserved to the public by the Daughters
of the American Revolution.

Its builder, Col. Jeremiah Page — Anne's grandfather —
who was to fight in the American Revolution, already showed
his belligerent tendencies by sympathizing with the famous
American tea-party of 1773, and by forbidding the further
brewing of the beverage under his Danvers roof.

But Mrs. Jeremiah Page could also be bellicose in her
quick-witted way in a spirit of fun. She had already in-
vited neighbors to a tea-drinking, and she evaded the letter
of the marital law by ordering Mistress Audrey Dill, the
black house servant and slave, to brew the tea on — not under
— the roof, whose flat deck made an excellent rendezvous
for these defiant ladies, who would have scorned the idea
that there was any flavor of toryism in their cups. Lucy
Larcom immortalizes the event, beginning as follows:

In this old house, even then not new,
A Continental Colonel true
Dwelt with a blithe and wilful wife,
The sparkle in his cup of life.

The piety of Anne Page's other grandmother named Fowler
is evident in her use of the old English Bible which I have
often seen. It was issued in 1769 by John Archdeacon,
printer to Cambridge University. This volume was read
through faithfully every year by grandmother Fowler.

The oldest portion of the house built by grandfather Page
about 1750 includes the spacious eastern room with its quaint
woodcarving on cornice, wainscot and mantel; and the cosy
western room, its fireplace encircled by blue tiles bearing
pictures varied in import: romantic, satirical, descriptive,
pastoral, and Scriptural.

Jeremiah Page's son John went wooing in the house of
the Bible-reading lady, marrying her daughter, Mary Fowler,
and bringing her into the architecturally attractive and his-
torically interesting Page house, where she found a happy
home for nearly seventy years. You should see her as I saw

244 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

her in 1864, sitting by the happy-faced fireplace in which
danced wood flames, its tiled border surrounded by a mantel-
piece of acanthus-leaf design with delicate mouldings.

In this Danvers home of Mrs. Mary Fowler Page, her
daughter Anne, the New-Church kindergartner, used to gather
her neighbors, and invite tiie Rev. Abiel Silver from his
neighboring parish at Salem to set forth in simple fashion
some tenet of our faith, or draw forth the spiritual message
of Scripture. Questions or interchange of religious senti-
ment would follow. Those were hallowed and reverent Sun-
day afternoons.

Miss Page was not petite, zephyrlike, and spirituelle, like
her mother, born in the eighteenth century. No cap with
flowing strings rested, even at seventy-three, on her capa-
cious head, which was well-filled with twentieth-century ideas,
including equal suffrage. No quaint kerchief was crossed
over her heart, as capacious as her head, and with room
for a vast deal of love for little children. She had a vigorous
mind requiring sustained thought, and accepted the New-
Church faith with a high degree of intelligence. She never
wavered from her convictions. Aside from the Church, her
life work was filial devotion to her mother, and unwavering
allegiance to kindergartening. She founded a successful nor-
mal school in Boston, and administered for long years to a
group of little Danverites after the Froebel fashion.

For her sake I have made a special pilgrimage to Wellesley
College, because the Department of Education there has
erected a building on the campus in honor of Miss Page, as
" one of the great pioneer kindergartners." Here Froebel's
system will be maintained free to all Wellesley children —
the college and the town cooperating in its administration.

IV

As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there.

George James Webb (1803-1889) was born in Rushmore,
Wiltshire, in Southern England. His niece, Mrs. Thomas
Reed, told me that he was reared in a highly musical family;
his father played the piano, and his sisters the violin, thus

Miss Caroline, younger daughter of Mr. George
James Webb, whom she resembles

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 245

forming a home orchestra. The New Jerusalem Magazine,
March, 1888, tells us of the family's financial ease and culti-
vated tastes; of the lad's voice, and strong musical leanings;
of his receiving instruction under Professor Alexander Lucas
at Salisbury; of his acquiring a knowledge of piano, violin,
harmony, and musical theory; and of especial attention to
the organ. A larger opportunity came to young Webb through
the arrival in London in 1824 of Manuel Garcia, who had
been chorister at Seville, opera singer in Cadiz, Madrid, and
Paris, merging into a composer. Webb now gained the
Italian method of vocalism from Garcia himself.

We know of the young musician's arrival in 1830 in Bos-
ton, and of his large work in the devotional Sunday services
of the Boston Society.

Mr. Webb led his musical forces into a wide field in his
week-day amateur concerts. Mrs. Augusta Fernald Faxon
has lent me the programmes covering fourteen years under
him. Among operatic composers are Beethoven, Bellini,
Donizetti, Gluck, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Rossini, and
Verdi. Among his choice of composers of sacred music are
Bach, Handel, Haydn, Hummel, Mendelssohn, Novello,
Palestrina and Sphor; with many admirable song writers.
Imagine the musical opportunities for our young people in
the fifties and sixties!

I asked Miss Edith Abell for a musical analysis of Pro-
fessor Webb. She writes:

"Mr. Webb's taste was impeccable, and its attitude to
church music profoundly reverential. The study of ecclesi-
astical composers like Palestrina, and Bach, and Handel,
and of the real English Church musicians, the use of the Gre-
gorian chants and their incorporation into our earlier Book
of Worship, made the musical form of our Church Service
dignified, lofty, serious, and spiritual."

How well is Miss Abell qualified to judge of Mr. Webb's
double range of musical work? She was his pupil, study-
ing later under Lamperti, and other instructors abroad. She
has memorized eighty operas, and has sung abroad in forty.
Consequently, when she took lessons of Jenny Lind, neither
needed any printed music, and she describes the Swedish

246 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

singer as playing the accompaniments magnificently. Large
opportunities came to Miss Abell during her eight years,
studying and singing professionally in Europe; and she was
musical director of the Boston Society's choir for seven years
after Mr. Webb's departure. I recall especially her singing
in a public performance of Bach's Passion Music when her
intelligent rendering and her depth of devotional interpre-
tation far excelled that of the other professional soloists.
Miss Abell continues:

"Among the many organists and conductors under whom
I have sung in my professional life, I can remember none
more able, serious, musicianly, and thorough, than Mr. Webb.
Fortunate in being admitted into the Boston choir at a very
early age, his choral teaching gave me so sure a compre-
hension of the best in the fine compositions he used, that I
had nothing to learn from subsequent teachers however fine.
Mr. Webb had said everything."

William Mason (1829-1908), pianist, New-Church or-
ganist, and son-in-law of Mr. Webb, was born in Boston.
Ascending the ancestral line five generations we come to
Barachias, who is the first recorded instance where the Mason
line has a vibratory musical sound. He was a teacher of
singing, a performer on the 'cello, and a Harvard graduate
of 1742; making a valuable academic and musical great-
grandfather to William Mason, the New Churchman. Will-
iam's father, Lowell Mason, is widely known. Webb assisted
him a little in his twenty sacred music books, and a great deal
in his seven glee books. Together they founded the Boston
Academy of Music, Mason representing church music, Webb
devoted to voice culture and secular music.

William Mason was trained for the piano by Henry
Schmidt, Symphony conductor, and by the pianoforte virt-
uoso, Leopold de Meyer. At twenty, he went abroad for
five years' study, where he met a sufficient number of great
musicians to fill a biographical cyclopaedia. In Mason's
Memories of a Musical Life are many distinguished auto-
graphs, often with notation, the most noticeable those of the
Kneisel Quartet, on a four-leaved clover. Richard Wagner

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 247

gave him his autograph with the dragon motive in The Ring
of the Nibelimg appended. This was June 5, 1852. Haupt-
man, who was Mason's teacher abroad, was skilled in church
music, and held the place in the Leipsic Thomas-schule for-
merly filled by Sebastian Bach.

Liszt — that strange child of genius, child of the world,
and child of the Church — had the pick from all the young
musicians in Europe for his pupils. His home in 1853 was
in Weimar. Mason's real test was after he had been accepted
as a pupil. His ordeal on the piano was two or three hours
long. Liszt incited enthusiasm, but drew on the vitality of
young Mason until he was tired and actually stiff from nerve
tension.

Returning to America in 1854, Mr. Mason soon settled in
New York City, and opened a thirteen years' series of chamber
concerts. We knew him there, and he always sent us tickets.
His string quartet included Theodore Thomas as first violin.
The latter, only twenty at the beginning, soon showed genius
for conductorship, and finally rose to be the head of the con-
certs, cordially and handsomely recognized by Mason.

William Mason was reared in Orthodoxy, and followed
his father as organist in Boston Congregational churches.
When seventeen years of age, on entering the drawing-room
of Mr. Webb, he saw for the first time Mary, his oldest
daughter, aged thirteen. He says:

" I had not been in the room half an hour before I was
deeply in love with her. She and I grew to be good friends,
but the idea of an engagement between us was not to be
thought of at that time, and while I lived in Germany we were
not permitted to correspond. For five years I did not see her,
but when I came back, I hastened to her father's house. This
had been my constant purpose ever since the time that I left
America." They were married on March 12, 1857.

William Mason, ten years after his marriage, made public
confession of his faith in the New Church; but he had pre-
viously presided over the church music in New York in my
father's day, and his wife was soprano in the Church quar-
tette. As a girl she was the leading voice in one of Mr.
Webb's large antiphonal choruses in the Boston Society. His

248 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

organ playing is described by Rev. Charles H. Mann in the
New-Church Messenger of July 29, 1908:

" Mason's improvisations were never a wandering about in
the realm of musical harmony, like a kind of aimless saunter-
ing, ready either to continue indefinitely, or to stop at any
moment. Rather Mr. Mason's improvisations were organic
imits. They had distinct themes, with beginnings, middle
points, and ends."

Mr. Mason's life was like his playing — a well-ordered
purpose: shown in his silent love of the unbethrothed maiden
for long years when away; in his fixity of aim expressed in
his vocation. He kept a high standard in music, and brought
the public up to it successfully; never catering to popularity
by the use of superficial and showy material.

Build thee more stately mansions, my soul.
As the swift seasons roll!

— Holmes's Chambered Nautilus.

Here is a touch; Is't good? "

rU say of it
It tutors nature.

— Timon of Athens, I. i, 44.

Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) spent his boyhood in
Chicago — a lusty young city which lies on a four-thousand-
mile water line, both ends of which touch the sea: not being
content with reaching the Atlantic through great lakes and a
big river, it must needs build a canal to reach the Atlantic
through a bigger river and a great gulf; it is also the point
from which radiate myriad freight car lines. We should
expect an ambitious and well-endowed boy growing up in a
seething centre like that to become a commercial magnate, a
railroad president, or a gigantic promoter in other fields. We
will watch the lad and see.

The Burnham household moved eastward that their flock
might profit by the Waltham New-Church School, and Daniel
breathed for four years the academic atmosphere of Harvard.
The latter was not necessary to neutralize the commercial
atmosphere of Chicago, because a city is not all commercial-

Daniel H. Bunihai

i^l|l|

Mrs. Eduin Burnham mother of the architect

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 249

ism if it has the elements which can set up a St. Gaudens
Lincohi, a Theodore Thomas orchestra, and a Jane Addams
Hull House. Mr. Burnham returned to Chicago, and after
a course of study in the art of building, he did become the
architectural expression of secular industries, and was called
" the father of the skyscraper." His Rand-McNally building
in 1889 was evolved on a new plan. Unprogressive pessimists
prophesied that plaster placed upon a skeleton of welded
steel beams would disintegrate, and the building go to pieces
at the first jar of the machinery inside. Imagine their dis-
comfiture at its failure "to crumple into twisted beams and
shattered masonry" years after it was put to the test! So
much for the utilitarian Daniel Burnham, represented by
scores of banks and stores scattered from New York to the
Pacific. The highly practical expressed artistically is found
in his Railway Station at Washington.

It was a long step to idealism from the utilitarian needs
of commerce, when Daniel Burnham and John W. Root, his
partner, were instrumental in bringing into being that dream
of beauty, the White City of the Columbian Exposition at
Chicago in 1893. Mr. Bumham's next step was less purely
idealistic and more tangibly altruistic — from the erection
of an evanescent city of glorified staff, to the beautifying of
prosaic cities in real life, that they might be well-ordered
in sites and groupings of buildings, pleasing to the lover
of harmony, healthy-toned, and hygienic. President Roose-
velt appreciated Daniel Burnham's ability, and in 1905 made
him one of a Commission on Public Buildings and Grounds
which included expert geniuses — Augustus St. Gaudens,
Charles F. McKim, and Frederick Law Olmstead.

A marked element in Burnham's career is the fact that
he was trained and ripened in this country. In 1911, he,
with his wife, son and daughter, went abroad for an auto-
mobile trip through France, Germany and Italy. Within a
year, he passed away suddenly at Heidelberg, cutting short
his observations of old-world art.

Mr. Burnham was for forty years a member of the Chicago
Church of the New Jerusalem, and had much of the quiet
decisiveness to be expected of a man whose grandfather

250 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

stood by his colors when excommunicated for Swedenborgian
heresy. Rev. Frank Sewall in the Messenger of July 3, 1912,
pays tribute to Bumham's consecrated civic spirit as shown
in his attitude toward the Lincoln Memorial, and its site,
saying:

"The fine analysis of the subject from all its more hidden
bearings — the relation of publicity to retirement, of soltitude
to noise and bustle, of thought and memory to trade and
cunning, of distance and reverence to nearness and famili-
arity — was clearly presented, and, side by side with these,
those severely practical questions which are sure to be fore-
most in the mind of the ordinary committeeman, and to
which Mr. Burnham knew how to pay proper deference."

Miss Adelia Gates (1825-1912) became at fifty years of
age an itinerant artist who loved to paint living flowers grow-
ing on the stem. She had the wanderlust in her veins, and
saw and heard much of the world; from the lusty birth cry
of a struggling Kansas, to the plaintive requiem of a dead
Carthage; from the stirring modem note of San Francisco,
to the mute immobile antiquity of Abu-Simbel; from the
intensive midday sun of Sahara, to the gentle midnight sun
of Norway; from the quiescent volcanoes of Lipari, to the
active geysers of Iceland.

Adelia Gates was born among the pine-clad Otsego hills
of New York. Her father was widely beloved, and poor.
His wife was rich in the quaint old folk-songs of England
which she gave while turning the great spinning wheel. Sugar-
making in the primeval forests of the estate was picturesque,
with gypsy fires under the huge cauldrons of seething, bub-
bling sap, and Adelia's only brother playing the flute.

Adelia's home education was practical: driving the cows
home, looking after the bees in the swarming season, and
"minding the crows," i.e., fending off" the black marauders
from the growing Indian com; and nothing could be more
felicitous for the crows than the absent-mindedness of their
young sentinel, who loved to sit "on the sunny side of an
old stump " with a book in her lap, and her thoughts in ancient
Greece or Rome.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 251

At twenty-two years of age, Adelia, eager for a college
education, entered a cotton mill at Lowell, Massachusetts, at
thirteen and a half hours a day. Having, after years of vicis-
situde, laid by two hundred dollars, it was at this juncture
that she learned of the utter financial failure of a valued
friend. Her little fortune would secure a quarter section
of Wisconsin government land, and give him a footing; but
man after man refused to lend money without guarantee.
Then came Adelia Gates with her precious offering.

" I'll not touch your poor little two hundred dollars," he
cried. "Haven't I seen you save it painfully, dollar by
dollar, by hard work, and don't I know that it is to pay your
fees in college? No. I can't take it, though your offer has
touched me to the very heart."

"But," she replied, "you must and you shall take it. I
can work, and lay by another two hundred. To me the delay
is brief. To you it means a whole lifetime. If you can
start afresh now, you will pick up the broken threads of your
life."

She prevailed, he prospered. In a few years he sold his
two-hundred-dollar farm for four thousand, and repaid her.
This is one of her eminently unbusinesslike proceedings in
lending money "upon no other security than the exceeding
need of the borrowers "; but they always made good.

With her second earnings, Adelia, in 1855, entered the
new Antioch College under Horace Mann, but she succumbed
in two years from overdrafts upon strength and vitality.
Soon after she was called upon by Mr. Richards — of Nor-
man-Celtic origin — to become instructress to his two mother-
less little girls. He took them abroad in 1867, for long
summers at his Irish estate at Enniscorthy, Wexford County.
To Miss Gates these outings were fresh, and the winters in
great cities a magnificent course of study. Parting with this
beloved family after fourteen years, she studied painting
systematically under Madame Vouga at Geneva.

In 1888 Miss Gates went to Algiers, where she had very
little money, but she had Thoreau's indifference to luxury,
and she could get ample nutrition at infinitesimal cost. Visit-
ing early in the morning the goats that had been sleeping on

252 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

the sidewalk, she filled her bowl with pure milk; a bit of
bread brought her Arcadian breakfast up to twopence. Sup-
per at less price was sumptuous — sardines, figs and bread.
For dinner she bought a large boiled yam piping hot from
the charcoal oven, to which she added bread and a half-pound
of grapes. This menu might be varied through exchange for
peas, beans, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, or tomatoes. She
successfully maintained this ten-cents-a-day diet for months.
She cared chiefly for people. She was kind to the blind
Frenchman, and the lame beggar, the cheese woman, and
the roast-chestnut man ; she had pleasant chats with students,
and antiquarians. She now wished to travel in the desert,
and her Gallic landlord employed the dramatic expressive-
ness of his race to dissuade her from going into the Sahara.
"What if you are massacred, mademoiselle? Catastro-
phies as shuddering sometimes accomplish themselves in the
desert."

" That would certainly put an end to all my travels, but
old women are seldom murdered. I don't fear anything of
the sort."

"Ah! but mademoiselle knows not the Arab. He is a

creature most depraved. He is eager for plunder. He fears

not the police. The Government reaches him not in the

distant oasis. I have fear I see you never again."

"Yes, you will. I shall come out of the Desert all the

browner and better for my trip."

Another friend, knowing how strikingly small was her

income, urged in vain the prohibitive cost of the contemplated

trip.

How did happy fortune save her in this dilemma? In

answer to this question, let me say that the little six-year-old

Adela Richards, brought up by Miss Gates, married Mr.

Orpen, a cousin of the famous Irish painter, William Orpen,

and to her book I am enormously indebted.*

Thanks to the paternal French-Algerian government, Miss

Gates, called "the Sid," traveled without cost, except three

* The Chronicles of the Sid, or the Life and Travels of Adelia Gates by
Adela E. Orpen, 403 pp., London, The Religious Tract Society, 1893. (By the
title of " Sid," meaning lady or mistress. Miss Gates was constantly known in
the Algerian desert during her journey.)

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 253

francs a day for her own horse, including its caretaker,
El Ebib, an indefatigable negro, '" who trotted along beside
her on his never-tiring bare feet." At this time, December,
1888, the Sid is sixty-three, with a camel-like facility for
going without food during long desert stretches, and a tran-
quillity of spirit that never worries. Miss Gates had twenty
years' biowledge of the French language, Algiers was
strongly dominated by France, she won the favor of the
Governor-General appointed from Paris. He gave her a letter
of introduction requesting for her the hospitality of all the
military commanders; the American Consul also furnished
letters, and the chief of the Arab bureau gave his letter to
be presented to the ca'id or chief man of each village, re-
questing him to furnish food and lodging gratuitously. The
government furnished her an armed escort without cost, Bel-
Ouari by name, as her guide, guard, and interpreter; thus
described in the Orpen chronicle:

"He was a splendid example of the finest type of Arab,
and the soul of loyalty to his French rulers. He was a well-
set-up officer on whose breast glittered a medal won by brave
exploits, and he possessed a good horse, good saddle, and
good rifle, all his accoutrements being in faukless order.
When this imposing creature was presented to the Sid she
was greatly struck by his fine bearing, he was so tall, so
straight, so manly." The commandant said:

" This is your escort, Madame. This man will guide you
safely to Aflou!"

"And," the narrator continues, "the Sid nodded to him
in a cheerful, friendly way; and he made her a dignified
bow in perfect silence, and then stood looking down at her
with his earnest Arab eyes. The perfect grace and stately
dignity of that soldier would make the fortune of an actor
who aspired to play the role of king."

As she approached Stettin, t^vo hundred and fifty miles
from Algiers, Bel-Ouari the Magnificent hastened in advance
to announce the coming of the Sid. The caid or village chief,
noting the official nature of the escort, and wishing to please
the government, treated her with distinction. At Bou-Alem,
she was the first white woman who had ever entered this

254 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

village. The handsomest of the chief's three wives, in a
gown of red and blacky with divers circles of silver on her
swarthy arms and ankles, made for her American guest
some cakes kneaded very thin, and fried in oil, after which,
honey was poured over them from a leathern bottle hung
from a tent-pole.

The Sid spent three days at Aflou, lodging at the fort,
and dining at the mess. The soldiers were delighted at
their guest. They were buried alive in that eventless remote
garrison, with the burning fiery desert around them. Dr.
Clery, one of their number, had made himself a capital
botanist, and the Sid was most happy in talking with him
and sharing his floral treasures.

"You have a magnificent hoard of things here. It must
be a delight to thus gather and collect around you."

"Yes, madame; it preserves the mind from despair. My
flower collections have saved me from going mad." And
years later, he wrote her:

" It was only a few days' rest in the midst of a long jour-
ney to you, madame; perhaps you have forgotten it, but we
have not. To us it was a breath of fresh air amidst the hot
sirocco, a glimpse of the fair outside world to a prisoner
in a gloomy cell."

The Sid next visited the Grand Marabout of Kurdane,
who lived in splendor and glory. "He was the richest man
in the desert. He was a king commanding heartfelt homage.
He was a so-called saint, absorbing the veneration of the
Arabs who have no authorized priesthood. He was a rebel,
secretly watched from afar by the government," because
capable of setting the whole Sahara on fire with a "holy
war." The Sid found the Marabout's home a veritable Ver-
sailles, with its gardens, shaded walks, and flashing foun-
tains; his palace spacious and airy; his dinners elegant and
elaborate. Clad in his robe of royal blue edged with gold
fringe, there was about him an imposing air which impressed
her as more kinglike than that of anyone she had ever seen.
She enjoyed also the hospitality of the Maraboutess.

And the Marabout sent our friend on to Laghouat in his
own royal carriage, and gave her a letter bearing a great red

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 255

seal — a most sacred shield ensuring perfect protection. And
now, in a large procession including a hundred soldiers, and
sixty camels bearing water-barrels and food-stuffs, she con-
tinued from Gardaia to Ouargla, nearing her journey's
end. She had sometimes ridden eight hours a day on horse-
back; she had sometimes ridden a cacolet on the camel — in
a pannier or wicker basket hanging on one side of the animal;
with an Arab balancing her in a pannier on the other side.
(I have seen a pair of little English twins riding on a white
mule after this manner in Palestine.) Miss Gates, while
in the Sahara, had slept on the ground, in a tent, in a hut,
in a palace. She had traveled in a circuit from Algiers to
Algiers, touching Tunis territory on the way.

For the sake of flower lovers and botanists, a few blossoms
shall be recorded which stood on their stems for their like-
nesses by Miss Gates, both here and during her twenty-four
years abroad. She stood on the rung of a step-ladder in a
California millionaire's hothouse that she might transfer to
paper a lofty blossoming ginger; she sat before a Sahara
thistle for the same purpose. She scaled Colorado heights
that she might reach the alluring Riibus deliciosus; she made
acquaintance with asphodels in ancient Carthage. She found
pretty nicotianum in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and asperula
in the fields of Boaz. And " in the presence of kingly
Hermon " grew a splendid arum, and two pretty varieties of
orchids.

Iceland was the last country visited — in 1891. Beyond
the great geysers, on the black shore of a boiling lake lay
fine lava sand, upon which rested " a perfectly beautiful
network of the Potentilla anserina. The plants were little,
but most beautiful, with a good touch of red in them, and
some yellow. The tendrils were wonderful for length and
brilliance of color, and so long as never were seen anywhere
else, I think."

I have met Miss Gates three times. In Michigan, where
she heard the Rev. Abiel Silver preach many times when
she was a guest of his New-Church brother, Jacob Silver.
Her path crossed mine again in West Newton in 1894. Her
hostess, Mrs. James Richard Carter, gave us an opportunity

256 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

to see her delightful paintings. Happy and rich the Sunday-
School which could have had on its walls all the likenesses
of her Holy Land flora! Her last twenty years were spent
largely in San Francisco, and my final interview with her
was on Sunday morning, July 21, 1901, at the Rev. Joseph
Worcester's church. It was to me a distinct loss of her vital-
izing companionship that her proffered invitation to dine
must be declined!

Mrs. Theodore F. Wright, who always considered it a
great privilege to have been one of her many hostesses, writes
of this " remarkable woman " :

"Miss Gates was everywhere scattering seeds of New-
Church truth unostentatiously, and living the life of religion
in doing good."

Mrs. Charles H. Mann became profoundly interested in
her and her work, and was ready to receive her with open
arms, saying of her:

" It has always done me good to think of her deep sincerity,
and genuine simplicity, and she was really a great inspiration
in my life."

In the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, Miss
Gates characteristically encroached upon her strength and
her substance in aiding the sufferers. She gradually lost
her sight, the remote resuh, perhaps, of the blinding sand
and sunlight of Sahara. Her last years were spent in the
Crocker Old People's Home. Mrs. Olivia Edmunds Turner
wrote me that Miss Gates, on her card of application to this
institution expressed herself in this manner: "Protestant —
of no external church, but with a marked preference for
Swedenborgianism." She frequently attended New-Church
services until a gradual decline incapacitated her; and Mrs.
David wrote me of her strong religious faith and trust in
no degree weakened by her blindness. She prized visits from
the Rev. Joseph Worcester and the Rev. Joseph David, both
of whom had part in her obsequies in 1912. She had quitted
the darkened windows of her house of clay, and had opened
her eyes to the visible light of the Lord's countenance.

Her affirmative and receptive attitude toward this spiritual
light is revealed in The Medium, vol. iv, pp. 268-270.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 257

VI

He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men.

— Julius Caesar, I. 2.

John Bigelow (1817-1911), journalist, diplomat, and
student of mankind, was bom on his father's well-stocked
and fruitful farm of 150 acres on the Hudson, whence the
commodities were sent to the great metropolis in his own
sloops. The lad's suit of homespun for higher education
was woven under the paternal roof from one of his father's
fifty sheep, and was made up by Mr, Snip, the village tailor.
This made young John a subject of derision by the aristo-
cratic students of the Troy Academy, but respect followed the
discovery that he could coach them in their studies, and
outdo them as a clever pitcher in baseball. After the Acad-
emy, young Bigelow attended for three years Trinity College
at Hartford, transferring later to Union College, Schenec-
tady. In New York City he took his degree in 1838 as attor-
ney at law, following the profession ten years. As a writer,
pungent criticism spiced with caustic wit and softened with
playful humor flowed from Mr. Bigelow's pen. He writes
in 1841:

" I was of an age when the combative principle is most
active, and when the love of the neighbor as one's self had
not come very far to the front. ... I was animated by the
spirit of school-boys out on a squirrel hunt."

Mr, Bigelow's twelve years' editorship and ownership
with William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post
enabled him to know other big men in the same line — Ray-
mond, Greeley, Dana, Godkin, and George William Curtis;
and enables us to know his owti excellent standards in his work
regarding the " Uses and Abuses of Journalism." But he
was an idealist tempered with practical good sense. In 1848,
when he took a share with Bryant, the Post's printing press
was worked by hand, and its circulation fifteen hundred. In
1861 Bigelow left it with an income of $75,000.

258 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

I draw from Mr. Bigelow's Retrospections of an Active
Life in five volumes, written in his ninety-second year. He
was first sent abroad by President Lincobi, officially as a con-
sul, but really as a journalist. His pen was to prevent the rec-
ognition of the Southern Confederacy, to influence public
opinion, to deflect the tide when running hostile, to outma-
neuvre the French Emperor. His secret correspondence with
statesmen in various countries is mighty interesting reading.
His great work was as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Ex-
traordinary to Paris during the period of our Civil War and
the French-Mexican imbroglio. To this was added his ambas-
sadorship at the court of Berlin during the Franco-Prussian
War.

" Napoleon HI," he said, " had three good political reasons
for putting Maximilian on the throne of Mexico: (i) To
conciliate the Austrian government which he had embittered
by driving die Austrians out of Italy in Victor Emmanuel's
day; (ii) To conciliate the Church by exalting a brother
of Francis Joseph, the most Catholic of sovereigns; (iii) To
take advantage of our Civil War troubles, and thereby check
the advance of the Anglo-Saxon race over the Latin. And,"
he adds prophetically, in 1863, " it looks as if his Majesty
was going to follow his uncle to the end of his career."

The theological crisis with marked spiritual results for
Mr. Bigelow came in 1853 when he was thirty-six. Quaran-
tined on one of the W. I. Islands, he criticized the letter of
Scripture within hearing of a traveling Danish acquaintance,
Mr. Kierolf , who lent him New-Church books, which were read
at first with curiosity, and the certainty of refutation. He
followed the Arcana with increased avidity, and studied
Swedenborg's personality through authentic "Documents"
compiled by Professor George Bush, for whose scholarship
he had long had the profoundest respect. He read this new
spiritual interpretation of Scripture ten hours a day with in-
creasing belief that Swedenborg was "a scribe instructed
unto the kingdom of heaven." And he writes in 1909, that
every one of the past fifty years has increased his sense of
obligation with fervent gratitude for his discovery, which is
embodied in his book. The Bible ivhich was Lost and is

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 259

Found, 120 pp., New York, New-Church Board of Publica-
tion, 1912.

Mr. Bigelow was for years a familiar figure in his New
York pew under Rev. Julian K. Smyth. Called hence at
ninety-four he received honor from the Evening Post, the
Sun, and Harper s Weekly. In the latter, for March 31,
1912, Rev. Henry Van Dyke says:

"It was during his journalistic period that three great
good fortunes came to Mr. Bigelow: first the beginning of
his happy domestic life by his marriage with Miss Jane Poul-
teney in 1850; second, the commencement of his life as an
author in 1852 . . . ; third, the recovery of his faith in the
Bible through an acquaintance in 1853 with the works of
that wondrous interpreter, Emanuel Swedenborg."

" Thus he waited, not idly but busily, not fearfully but
bravely, in the confidence of a certain faith, in the comfort
of a reasonably religious and holy hope, for the coming of
the great change, the great liberation, the great promotion
from an active life to a redeemed immortality of service.
So John Bigelow passed away on December 19, 1911."

Howard Pyle (1853-1911) was bom of a devoted woman
who stood for the consecration of motherhood. Her idea of
perfect happiness was this: "What I have — only if I could
be a better woman." Her husband, her three sons, and her
only daughter were with her at the last, and she told them
that in the other world she should ask the Lord to teach her
how to make for them a finer home than the one here. Eman-
uel Swedenborg, writing of the relationship of different facul-
ties of the soul, makes this statement:

" Love, or the will, prepares a house or bridal apartment
for a future spouse, which is wisdom or the understanding."
— Divine Love and Wisdom, No. 402.

Picture the little Howard stretched on a rug before a snap-
ping and crackling hickory fire enjoying the pictures in Old
Curiosity Shop and The Newcomes, as his mother read the
stories. Growing in literary culture, and gaining years of
careful art training in Philadelphia, he was called by Har-
per s to New York, became one of a group of active illus-

260 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

trators including Joseph Pennell and Edwin A. Abbey, and
formed with the latter a warm friendship.

We turn from the sumptuous coloring of Abbey's Quest
of the Holy Grail to Pyle's masterpiece, the Story of the
Champions of the Round Table in four large books. His
illustrations are powerful. Sir Lionel of Britain with an
expression steady, dark and fierce, bears upon his shield the
figure of a red gryphon, a thing of terror, with open mouth,
extended tongue, and uplifted paw. When the Black Knight
meets in conflict the noble and stately Sir Launcelot, it was
with such wrath that " it appeared as though their fierce eyes
shot sparks of fire through the occulariams of their helmets."
In contrast we have Lady Yvette the Fair, lily in hand, tran-
quil and contemplative, as if pondering the meaning of life.
Harper's paid their tribute in January, 1912, to Pyle's humor,
at once quaint and antique, to his written style, virile, sig-
nificant, and charmingly idiomatic, to his general work as a
fresh revival of the Romantic, occupying the field of wonder
without Rossetti's vagueness. Of his spirit and aim they v/rite:

" Of Quaker parentage, and an enthusiastic disciple of
Swedenborg, it was natural that he should listen to the inner
voice and reject the traditions of men, and the authority
of the schools — also that he should seek the inward and spirit-
ual meaning of things." Observe Pyle in his art instruction
to classes in Wilmington, Delaware, often gratuitous, and
limited to students of marked ability. Look at Maxfield
Parrish's fascinating Dream of Youth, and ask yourself if a
teacher might not well be proud of such work; and yet Pyle's
own dream of youth did not prove an evanescent bubble in
the air. Study one of his favorite pupils in Miss Olive
Rush, whose soft-toned water color picture of a beautiful
girl was reproduced in the Woman s Home Companion of
April, 1912. It rebukes our comic colored Sunday Supple-
ments whose crude, fierce tints scorch the eyeballs!

Elsie Roeder, fine-grained in nature, artistic in tempera-
ment, ethereal in spirit, won high praise from Pyle, and
demonstrated her capacity " to express with decided boldness
and power, the moods of an imagination that was always
penetrating and original." She continued study under Ed-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 261

ward PenfieJd and at the Chase School in New York, and
contributed to high-class magazines. For illustrating " Love's
Young Dream " she was awarded $250.00 as a prize, but,
short-lived, she was not to realize in this world any romantic
maidenly vision. Her father, the Rev. Adolph Roeder, whose
Sea-Pictures she had fitly illustrated, contributed to the
Messenger of May 13, 1914, a little after her transition, a
tribute, beginning:

On God's palette, where angels inix their colors,

And where deep, mystic shades harmonious blend :
Dip thou thy brush, thou artist-soul, and revel

In that creative joy, that knows no end.

Another pupil was Pyle's sister Margaret. Her charming
books elude you at the public libraries; the children love
them and they are always out. A third New-Church pupil,
Jessie Wilcox Smith of Philadelphia, is known to us by her
apt Cradle Roll picture, and her "Cinderella," where the
firelight brings out the character in her beautiful face.

Howard Pyle, the story-writer, should have large mention.
In his Rejected of Men was an effort born of conviction to
bring into modern life the Christ standard, also attempted
in articles by Stead, Hale, and others. Pyle's In Tenebras
(Harper's, February, 1894) takes the field entered by Henry
Van Dyke in The Mansion. He follows two men into the
other world, and reveals their inner selves.

I knew Howard Pyle (i) as a handsome, manly lad, recit-
ing S. S. poems with effective emphasis and fervent spirit,
(ii) At forty-eight, he was erect, vigorous, tall, a gracious
host in his beautiful studio which lay behind a garden,
(iii) On December, 1903, all his family, despite a furious
rainfall, were in their Wilmington Church pew. In 1910
they held a little religious home service to consecrate their
journey abroad — a journey culminating for him in heaven.

Adeline Knapp made a sojourn in the Philippines, and
published in 1902 a descriptive work. She made a sojourn
in Arizona, and wrote a novel of dramatic power and spiritual
interpretation of life. She paid a tribute at the Massachusetts
New-Church Woman's Alliance to the Lyons Street San Fran-

262 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

cisco Church and the Rev. Joseph Worcester; and she has-
tened back for his closing blessing just before her death in
1909. She told me of her love of life; but she made the
supreme sacrifice willingly at last.

She knew the mining region of Arizona which presented
a good deal to shock the fine-grained person in its wild and
sometimes lawless camp life emphasized by profanity, gam-
bling, and quick revenge with the pistol. But if the habitues
of this region were rightly touched there would appear just
as suddenly a big generosity warm from the heart. This
is powerfully illustrated in Bret Harte's Luck of the Roaring
Camp. Could this element be made more than evanescent?
When early manhood came into contact with evil, cherished
the growing doubt, and harbored revenge in the heart, how
could God bring out the sweet elements of childhood — hid-
den and carefully guarded — and make these elements instru-
mental for salvation, as declared in Swedenborg's Arcana,
No. 5135?

This is the problem handled by Miss Knapp in her book,
A Well in the Desert. Gabriel Gard, the central figure of
Miss Knapp's story, had lived in the atmosphere of camp life,
had been betrayed in a business transaction by a trusted
friend, and again betrayed by his lawyer of defence. Forced
to flee to the desert, he carried with him a heart full of bitter
gall. The very fauna, and flora, and contour of Arizona at
its worst were startlingly symbolic of his state of mind. The
Gila monster — a huge lizard with venomous teeth — lurked
in the sand; the scream of the wild cat, the howl of the
coyote, the screech of the owl, remind us of Bible imagery
over wicked Babylon inhabited by " doleful creatures " of
the desert (Isa. xiii, 21). The place where Gard lived
was unproductive, recalling the region as we approach the
Dead Sea, where we see bushes that are all thorn and no
verdure. The dreary and forbidding barrenness of the Ari-
zona levels was gashed by yawning ravines; the cinder cones
indicated extinct volcanoes. With the mercury reaching
130°, the ground was "smitten and withered like grass,"
as the Psalmist describes the human heart (cii, 4).

Gard was entirely alone in the desert. There were long

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 263

days of hatred, and long days of despair. Then began the
dawning of a better period. During his Robinson Crusoe
life he gradually learned to fashion utensils in clay. Upon
them he put inscriptions which came to be " a sort of com-
mentary, seen by no eyes save his own, of his moods, and
their longing for expression."

"He put them down upon whatever served, for the mere
comfort of seeing them . . . lines from half-remembered
poems and hymns; familiar Bible verses that his mother had
taught him. They came back to him bit by bit, in his solti-
tude. And one and all his soul found them camps by the
way on its long journey up from despair."

There were other boyish memories: "the white Church at
'The Centre' Avhere he had gone to Sunday School; the little
shed chamber with its creaking stairs that his mother had
climbed, how many cold nights! to see if he were warmly
covered. She was gone from earth now, but the old bovhood
places were left, and he yearned for them all, with yearning
unspeakable. There were a few small pretty creatures which
filled all this grim place with an ineffable grace. ... 'To
think of it,' the man murmured, 'the little, little things, so
fearless up here in this — this — secret — place — of — the
— Most — High!'"

He stopped in vague surprise at his own speech. He had
not meant to say that, but from some neglected recess of
his boyhood's memory the words had sprung, vital with
meaning.

Reaction followed, with a sense of the bitterness of his
desolation. Then the ache of his spirit's yearning drew his
clenched hands up toward the blue vault.

"I wish," he breathed, his heart pounding, his brain
awhirl with a sudden vision of the infinite wonder of things,
" I wish that — if there is such a thing as God in the world
I might come to know it."

Card needed something outside of himself upon which
to expend the childhood's love reawakening in his heart.
And God sent a stray burro that very night to his hearthstone.
"The creature had been wounded by a crucifixion-thorn;
Gard drew out the cruel spike and soothed the hurt with a

264 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

poultice of prickly pear. Later in the night he was awak-
ened. His grateful little patient was licking his hands."
Greeting her colloquially, " he slipped an arm over the rough
little neck and the two watched the fire till dawii."

He would grant all except the relinquishment of his ven-
geance. The battle ground of his soul fairly trembled under
the conflict. One day there rose " an agonized wail as his
spirit recognized the inexorableness of this demand upon its
powers — the forgiveness of his enemies."

"I've got to! I've got to! If I'd sensed it," he said in a
voice tense with his soul's pain, " If I'd sensed that this is
what comes of knowing there's a God, I guess I wouldn't have
dared wish that."

"Viciously he had torn and kneaded the clay which formed
the utensil in his hands; slowly he now engraved on it The
Cup of Forgiveness; peacefully he thrust it forward for its
final perfecting in the fire.

"We'll see how it comes out," he muttered, grimly, but
already the hope grew in his heart that the clay would stand
the test (pp. 61-63).

The victory came. "He had learned the futility of hate
in the nights when he watched the great stars wheel by, mark-
ing the march of the year.

"There's nothing in it! there's nothing in it!" he finally
said to himself, " It ain't a man's job to be staking out claims
on hell for another fellow" (pp. 73, 74).

Gard went back to civilization and to his friends, and he
turned to the life of humanity so much larger than his own
little needs. His own affairs desperately needed readjusting,
but he strove to reinstate justice in the affairs of Mrs. Hallard,
an old neighbor. God seemed real and near. The twenty-
third Psalm, taught by his mother in infancy, was engraved
on his mind; and now, the verse came surging in his brain:
" Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life." Then the problem of Divine Providence pre-
sented itself — a growing sense of the breadth of God's de-
signs.

" If you've ever noticed it," Gard said, " there's a kind of
reasonableness in the way things happen, even when they

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 265

look black. They happen out of each other; and there's
Something managing them, no matter how it looks, sometimes.
I've found that out."

"I'd like to help in the managin'," Mrs. Hallard said,
grimly.

"You couldn't." Gard shook his head thoughtfully. " You
couldn't see the whole scheme. And we don't need to want
to. Whoever's doing it is making up a whole piece out of 'em.
That's this world we're in. It's our world. We belong in it;
and there ain't anything in it for us to be afraid of but just
ourselves." (P. 2i4.)

In this novel, the spiritual evolution of Gabriel Gard is
the story within the story. The dominant instrumentality
for this end is the power of the Good Book: the reviving of
infantile Bible memories which proved a " well in the desert "
to the arid soul. "When I got out on the big desert," Gard
says, "I found God there, same's I'd believed when I was
a iDoy back on the prairie."

VII

William Cooper Howells (father of William Dean Howells,
the novelist) was editor, prinler and publisher of a New-
Church periodical in Ohio in the early forties. He had dis-
covered our faith in 1839, together with his brothers, Dr.
Joseph Howells and Dr. Henry C. Howells, all loyal disciples.

The grandfather of this trio of brothers sailed for America
with a stock of his Welsh flannels, sold them advantageously,
but refused President Washington's appeal that he stay and
help our country industrially through his vocation. The
Welshman's son came to stay, landing at Boston in 1808.
He soon turned his face toward the middle West, taking his
family with him. He slowly made his way toward the set-
ting sun, crossing the state of Pennsylvania in 1813 in a huge
wagon drawn by five horses. The wife and children, having
been previously weighed, were carried as freight, the owner
of the wagon charging Mr. Howells by the pound for their
transportation.* Exchanging the vehicle for a flat-boat, the

* This incident is related many years later by William Cooper Howells him-
self in HistoricMl Collections of Ohio, vol. i, p. 967, published at Norwalk, Ohio.

266 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

sturdy pioneer went down the Ohio to Steubenville.

The eldest child, William Cooper Howells, grew up, mar-
ried the sweet-spirited Mary Dean, settled in 1840 in Hamil-
ton, Ohio, and became editor of the Hamilton Intelligencer.
In 1843 he founded a New-Church quarto weekly, The
Retina, choosing the title for its " brevity and expressiveness,"
and defining it as follows:

" The Retina is the expansion of the optic nerve that sur-
rounds the interior of the eye-ball; and its use is to convey
to the mind the images of objects in the material world with-
out and beneath us. It is thus that we wish to use our Retina
— to impress upon it the forms of things within the range
of the soul's vision; and we hope that it may be so illumi-
nated by the light of Truth as to present them correctly."

The second son of Howells the Editor was William D.
Howells the novelist. The latter, in his book, A Boys Town,
p. 12, speaks of his father's parental training. The Rise of
Silas Laphani presents the hero in temptation as "trying to
get a fresh clutch on his underlying principles." Mr. Howells
writes vividly in the Editor's Easy Chair of Harper s for
November, 1917, in comment on Sir Oliver Lodge's Ray-
mond, and says:

"What is a little odd about such interviewing of immor-
tality as Sir Oliver Lodge's book records is that he takes no
note of the great, full, and most explicit affirmations of
spiritual life by a most eminent scientific man who observed
it a century and a half ago, and Avho has in these later days
come into such satisfaction as his immortal spirit may enjoy
from the recognition of his scientific forecast of the great
principles supposed to be the discovery of much more mod-
em inquiry."

Then follow allusions to Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell,
laudatory and questioning by turns.

Regarding editorials by William Cooper Howells, we find
his Retina happy on pp. 86, 110, under the heading Univer-
salism in his treatment of free-will and the conditions of
genuine happiness; on p. 205 he gives judicious warning
regarding Fourierism, that New Churchmen should discrimi-
nate sharply between the secular and the moral factors in it;

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 267

on p. 234 he writes reverently of the sacraments, and wisely
on tlieir administration only by an ordained clergy; and on
p. 119, under the title Campbell and Rice-Baptism, he al-
ludes to a recent public controversy, and writes delightfully
on the attitude we should hold toward religionists who differ
from us. But he is at his best on pp. 391, 392, on Mesmeric
Revelation in his answer to an article of the same name on
pp. 387, 388, by Edgar Allen Poe. Present day laymen, with
Potts's Concordance as an aid, will do well if they can lead
their readers in as clear-minded a manner along the paths
of safety as, on the whole, was achieved by the slightly
equipped, sincere, and fearless Howells.

Horace Parker Chandler (1842-1919) edited an Anthol-
ogy in three volumes entitled The Lovers' Year Book; a fort-
nightly periodical called Every Other Saturday; and, through
The Mariner s Advocate, he helped guard, until almost the
very last of his life, the welfare of sailors. He was an early
and earnest instrumentality in the movement for photolitho-
graphing the unpublished works of Swedenborg, and warmly
supported Professor Rudolph Tafel in his work.

Horace Chandler's life was singularly rounded out. He
was a Harvard graduate of 1865, proud on his classday of
his betrothed, Miss Grace Mitchell — a beautiful girl in
white — warm-hearted, gay-spirited, and radiant in happi-
ness, who became his bride the same year. He loved chil-
dren, and heaven sent them six, with flocks of grandchildren.
Baptisms among the latter brought the fifth generation, from
Mrs. Esther Parsons Chandler, into testimony to our faith.
Horace loved architecture, had aptitude for it, and made
his own home no duplicate, but rich in his own ideas, and
individual in expression. He rescued a rare hand-carved
Colonial mantelpiece, with chimney-front above, from debris
in the cellar of a Tremont Street house undergoing demoli-
tion. From this noble note he built up a symphony of quiet,
restrained design. His library windows were copied from
Haddon Hall, and a pleasure in color and form. He loved
books, and left about ten thousand carefully selected volumes,
including rare editions of Swedenborg. He loved decora-

268 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

live art, and adorned his harmoniously tinted walls with
delightful Caproni bas-reliefs. He loved travel, revisited
many places, observed appreciatively, and knew England
far jjeyond most tourists. He loved social companionship,
and entertained many guests. His household was large,
sometimes including three generations, but the menage was
so administered that the machinery was noiseless.

He belonged for forty-nine years to the Roxbury Society,
he and his wife being charter members. We recall him as
Sunday-school superintendent, holding teachers' meetings
in his picturesque attic,, rich in travel treasures. His quiet
home Christmas gatherings of near friends were several times
sanctified by an infant baptism. Recreation was not absent.
Picture a small metallic Christmas tree, revolving, foreign-
fashion, on its base — ablaze with lights, and surrounded
with gifts. Or picture a tall spruce, crowned with a little
winged figure, and sheltering below a little seated Chandler
maiden; and grandfather Peleg Chandler fervently exclaim-
ing: "An angel at the head, and an angel at the foot!" Or
picture their little Grace in a small recess-opening, seated
in a tiny chair, by a miniature table, lighted by a toy lamp,
reading from a diminutive volume a petite story in a child's
musical voice.

Mr. Chandler's wife went first to the other life. He was
never away from her for many hours during her last twenty-
eight months. In his little absences she watched his goodbye
gesture, and watched his return, after the rose-colored fashion
of the old betrothal days almost fifty years before. His
physical disabilities increased, but, with extraordinary powers
of silence and reserve, he bent graciously to the loss. When
his sun was almost set, another blessed light came to him
in a visit from his newest grandchild and namesake.

At his obsequies, his beloved friend, Rev. Julian K. Smyth,
paid fitting and heartfelt testimony. It was a rare tribute to
a layman that there were six other New-Church clergymen
— Revs. Eaton, Hite, Sperry, Whitehead, Worcester, and
Wunsch — among the many friends present. He himself was
a friend true as steel. To him you instinctively went when
in trouble.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 269

VHI

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

— Portia to Nerissa. Merchant of Venice, V, i, 90.

Miss Maria Crosby Moulton (1819-1904) was our Sister
Dora. I know of no one in the New Church who gave so
prodigally her vitality, her very life. She chose to be light
and warmth to the blind during long decades of self -exacting
devotion.

Our first glimpse of her was as our guest at our New
Hampshire home. During her stay we gave a party for the
Contoocook Academy students — sixty perhaps — and she
at once started games with the greatest spontaneity, games
not too exacting mentally, games in which all could join; and
her warm-hearted enthusiasm melted the shyest, quickened
the slowest, and brought out the most reserved. Everybody
loved her at once.

Her subsequent life-work was under Dr. Samuel G. Howe,
that "Cadmus for the Blind," who deserves a lofty niche
in our Walhalla for his ten years' effort in inventing an
alphabet for the blind-deaf mute, Laura Bridgman. On our
visits, if the latter was seen sitting alone in the corridor, she
was invariably brought along in our walk, and Miss Moul-
ton's kind fingers talked on her hand. She was called "Dear
Saint Moulton "; and I fek that she was Shakespeare's " little
candle," and that it was lighted by the Lord (Psalm, xviii, 28) .

Sir Francis Joseph Campbell (1832-1914) was a Ten-
nessee lad who became blind, who studied abroad, especially
at Leipsic, where Mendelssohn was making an inspiring musi-
cal center, and who became a musical force under Dr. Howe.
He was a co-worker with Miss MouUon and a co-disciple in
the New Church.

After eleven years with Dr. Howe Mr. Campbell went to
England in 1869 to enlarge his field of usefulness. For the
blind must no longer be beggars, but self-supporting and
self-respecting. In his own school-life he was the best player,

270 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

and became a teacher at twenty. Two tutors alternated to
read to him the classics. Although sightless, he clambered
up the Tennessee mountains, and afterwards climbed Mont
Blanc and won a fellowship. The number of the blind in
England dependent upon charity appalled him. After two
years of herculean effort to obtain funds and co-workers, with
prospects sometimes as black as his own bodily vision, but
lighted up by an inward faith as true as the sun, he succeeded.

In 1871 was founded the Royal Normal College and Acad-
emy of Music for the Blind at Upper Norwood, a pleasant
suburb just south of London. The sixteen acres surround-
ing the magnificent buildings give opportunity for athletics
of many kinds, and the multicycles, for a dozen or more
riders each, are a familiar sight on the rural roads. The
curriculum for self-supporting industries is very wide. Dr.
Howe sent over the Misses Knight, Greene, Faulkner,
Howes and Dawson as assistants. Englishmen subscribed
$1,200,000; the Duke of Westminster, the largest landholder
in England, became President of the Board of Trustees, sub-
scribing fifteen thousand dollars; the Duke of Argyle, and
the Rothschilds were sympathetic patrons; King Edward VII,
who was one of Campbell's strong admirers, knighted him
in 1909. I knew one of the teachers, who showed us how
Campbell's American head was still firm on his shoulders in
spite of royal patronage; and how the blind children of the
nobility at Upper Norwood were subject to the same regu-
lations as the children of the commoner. She also described
her Christmas visits at the ancestral homes of some of her
blue-blooded pupils.

Sir Francis Campbell completed his forty-one years' service
at Norwood in 1912. His wife, Sophia Faulkner Campbell,
truly his helpmeet, shared the beautiful farewell gifts of
gold and silver, and was proud of " The Grand Old Man of
the Blind."

Swedenborg says in the Arcana, No. 994: "The sight of
the eye exists from an interior sight, wherefore . . . they
who were blind in the life of the body see in another life
equally well with those who were quick-sighted."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 271

Professor Thomas Reeves (1843-1895) was another happy
note in Dr. Howe's harmonious Akruria, and formed, with
Miss Mouhon and Mr. Campbell, a trio of New Churchmen.

Little Thomas was bom in the Green Isle, the land of
Erin's harp, the land of imagination and song. Heaven sur-
rounded the child with five apertures through which he
could enjoy the material universe, but on the way over from
Ireland to America the windows of his house of clay became
closed through some untoward accident, and the little father-
less boy of six living inside could never look out again upon
this beautiful world.

Was the accident untoward? In 1853 Thomas was taken
to South Boston, and he was shepherded by Dr. Howe, and
mothered by "Dear Saint Moulton," and educated by the
Institution, and trained musically by Mr. Campbell, and
strongly eulogized by Mr. Anagnos. And he studied under
Arthur Foote and B. J. Lang, and succeeded Mr. Campbell
as musical director. And he married, in 1881, Miss Sarah
Newhall, who was quite as altruistic as he; and it was a
pleasure to know these noble New-Church co-workers.

During an interval of organ playing at Bangor, Professor
Reeves greatly enjoyed sermons by the Rev. George H. Mars-
ton, and he had an admirable friend in Mr. Darling (after-
wards of Providence, Rhode Island) who read aloud to him
the big volumes of Swedenborg, so that he became an in-
telligent and well-read receiver of our faith.

A sketch of Helen Keller fits in obviously with the followers
of the "Cadmus of the Blind." In her autobiography at
twenty-three observe her poetic sense: I was born in an Ala-
bama home among " heart-satisfying roses and flickering leaf-
shadows dancing in the sun." Read of her calamity: "My
deprivation of sight and hearing at nineteen months had
taken all the light and music and gladness out of my little
life." Here is her obligation for Miss Sullivan's training:

" Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and
a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that
I iDeheld many wonders. And from the sacred mountain I
heard a voice which said, Knowledge is love, and light, and

272 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

vision." As a Radcliffe alumna, observe her pictorial imagi-
nation, literary style, and perspicacity in estimating books:

" Virgil is serene and lovely, like a marble Apollo in the
moonlight; Homer is a beautiful animated youth in the full
sunlight with the wind in his hair. ... I like Carlyle for
his ruggedness, and scorn of shams; Whittier for his en-
thusiasms, and moral rectitude; Scott for his freshness, dash,
and large honesty." Macaulay's brilliancy does not dazzle
her; she says: "His frequent sacrifice of truth to effect kept
me in a questioning attitude."

Helen had the world at her feet. Graham Bell told her
of messages on wire, which she said, "mock space and out-
run time." Unparalleled privileges were accorded her at
the Chicago World's Fair, which she called "a tangible kalei-
doscope." Dr. Greer, at his St. Bartholomew's service, read
the Scripture slowly that it might be repeated into her hand.
Phillips Brooks wrote her from London of the love of God.
She grew to be an interrogation point. Analyzing David's
words, " He leadeth my soul," she asked, " Has it feet? Can
it walk? "

John Hitz, Superintendent of the Volta Bureau at Wash-
ington, was Helen's first New-Church teacher. He was aided
by Rev. J. E. Werren in getting our faith put into braille. The
latter has corresponded with her for ten years and instructed
her in Hebrew. She had learned that the bodily eye is only
a window to see through, and the earthly ear only a trumpet
to hear through, and that she is now a spiritual being with a
five-fold equipment like the angels, and that she is handi-
capped only for this life. She addressed verbally nearly
six hundred people at our General Convention gathering in
Washington in May, 1919. Her topic was " Swedenborg's
Message of Comfort." She says in our Messenger, December
31, 1919:

"I met the greatest living friend for the sightless. Sir
Arthur Pearson, last spring, and he made my cup of joy over-
flow by offering to have put into braille any book I wanted.
That is how I happen to be able to obtain such long books as
' The True Christian Religion.' I also have ' The Divine Love
and Wisdom,' ' The Divine Providence,' ' Intercourse between

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 273

the Body and the Soul,' 'The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly
Doctrine.' . . . But I yearn to share my dearest treasures
with others. If you ever find a blind person who wants to
read any of Swedenborg's works through, will you kindly let
me know, so that I may lend him or her some of my books?"

IX

I would rather entreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad.

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, i, 47.

Early in 1892 Mrs. Henry Nichols invited me to be her
guest in a European trip. Our household treasures had been
transferred to the other world ; we were both left a bit isolated,
and were much to each other. We sailed via Gibraltar for
Genoa, and crossed the continent to the North Sea. She en-
joyed Europe, and I enjoyed her. In Italy, she was much
occupied with the vivacious, voluble, quick-witted natives —
having deference without servility, and ignorance without
stolidity. We were interested in the stratification of society
in Rome, one party for the Vatican and the Pope, the other
for the Quirinal and the King.

At Florence, we were at the pension of Miss Godkin, whose
brother was the famous editor of the New York Evening
Post and the Nation. She was the daughter of James Godkin
of Ireland, a Presbyterian minister and journalist, and her
opinions, like those of her brother, were clear-cut, which
pleased Mrs. Nichols. Twice we visited Signor Loreta Scocia,
our New-Church translator of Swedenborg's Latin into Italian,
continuing this consecrated work during the last twenty-nine
years of his life. He and his wife were a child-like, demon-
strative, kindly, and eminently social couple, with a charming
little Pomeranian dog for a pet, and nightingales in the neigh-
boring trees for music.

Mrs. Nichols, in Venice, as elsewhere, was original and
unexpected. She largely ignored Baedeker, and we visited
art galleries little, rode very much in gondolas during these
last three weeks in June, and saw the city a good deal on
foot, over bridges, and through back alleys, where mightily
interesting little folk clustered around the back doors. St.

274 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Mark's Church was our delight beyond all words. Mrs.
Nichols had an eye for color, and from our hotel balcony
looking out on the lagoon we watched the boats, picturesque
with sails of old gold, old rose, and subdued brown. They
grew dim as the shadows deepened ; the black gondolas faded
from sight, and the gondoliers became shadowy white figures
gracefully swaying on the water. Soon, nothing was visible
but the lamps in the prow- — -ruby, emerald, topaz, or white
— mysterious floating stars of light.

Mrs. Nichols loved Scotch people, hence she sought out the
Church services of the Presbyterian Rev. Alexander Robert-
son. He gave us this advice : to traverse the Dolomite region
before the extinction of stage-coach travel, — and this was
our happy experience. Pieve di Cadore is the most beauti-
ful village in the whole world, with its smiling Italian hills
on a background of stern Austrian Dolomites, the latter capa-
ble, however, of transformation by sunlight into molten silver
or ethereal rose tints. Mrs. Nichols loved flowers, and proved
a veritable chamois, as we clambered among graceful larches
to gather pink lupines, magenta thistles, corn-colored spirea,
and spiked orchids.

Mrs. Nichols loved children, and, in the Austrian Tyrol,
at Gossensass, we lodged in a quaint old house with a
mediaeval kitchen, and centuries-old ways of living. And
on quitting, she left six sealed envelopes, each containing a
coin, to be opened at Christmas by the widowed mother
Hirber, and the '^ fiinf kleine Kinder," whose names were
Alois, Elizabeth, Anna, Heinrich, and Carl.

Mrs. Nichols loved peasants, and we went to Oberam-
mergau for five days. It was an off year for the Passion
Play, but we lodged with the Nicodemus of the play, with
Pontius Pilate on one side, and Judas Iscariot on the other;
and we saw the lad of eighteen who had represented the
Apostle John in 1890, whose picture had been on screens
all over the world, but who was not self-conscious, nor shy,
nor vain.

Having traversed the picturesque Italian, Austrian, and
German Tyrols and the Martin Luther country visiting Wart-
burg Castle, we sailed from Bremen, August 31, 1892. I

Mr. Henry H. Nichols, book publisher

>

^

^1?^

Mrs. Henry H. Nichols, travel-hostess

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 275

had learned that my friend loved children, peasants, and
flowers.

She had loved the Church since her childhood school days
with little James Reed, aged two and a half. The site of the
school building is now occupied by the Club of Odd Vol-
umes on Mt. Vernon Street. Mrs. Nichols survived her
husband twenty-one years. In her last illness she often told
the nurse to open the door, that he and her mother were
waiting for her; and many a time during our journey she
said, " I am just as much married to my husband as if he
were here."

" By the street called Straight, he reached the city called Beautiful."

Robert L. Smith (1799-1869) was the White Knight of
commerce, who, in settling with creditors, ignored the letter
of the law, and observed its spirit. Born in New Bruns-
wick, New Jersey, he early became the lad of affairs. When
thirteen years of age, he made his first boyish venture. Backed
financially by an uncle, he bought and sold advantageously
large quantities of tea in the early part of the War of 1812.

We find him at twenty-five launched on his mercantile
career in New York City in partnership with a brother-in-law
as importers of India shawls, and Leghorn hats. In 1826
he married Miss Mary Northrup, and their home was always
an attractive social centre. Tall in stature, courtly in man-
ner, urbane in spirit, prosperous in affairs, and open-handed
as a host, he tasted the sweets of popularity.

Current theology turned the footsteps of his wife and him-
self in a new direction. Their two dear little children had
been called to the other life, when, on a certain Sunday, the
religion in which they had been reared presented a startling
aspect. They were in their accustomed pew in a famous
church on Fifth Avenue, when the clergyman declared in
his sermon that hell was paved with the bones of unredeemed
infants not a span long. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were sore-
hearted over the loss of their little ones, and the enunciation
of this dreadful dogma was a cruel blow unconsciously ap-

276 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

plied to an open wound. They quitted the Church, never to
enter it again.

This incredible doctrine really did exist. Canon Farrar
of the Church of England, in his What Heaven Is, traces the
teaching to a fifty century Church Father who tried to soften
it by calling it a levissama damnatio; the Protestant Church
Council of Dort reaffirmed it in the seventeenth century; the
Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, fellow and tutor of Harvard,
issued from Maiden in his Day of Doom the same dogma
in crude but vivid verse. He died in June, 1705.

Spiritual comfort came to Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Smith
through Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell. They read it with
avidity, and accepted its teachings at once. They sealed
their faith by receiving baptism in 1831, at the hands of
Rev. Charles Doughty — a man strong and resolute, but
kindly and conscientious, who had represented the New
Church in New York since 1816.

To espouse an unpopular cause for life required tenacity
of fibre, unworldliness of soul, and a conviction that knows
no turning. The Smiths, who had been socially identified
with New York life for many years, were made to feel a
heavy loss of prestige upon their openly avowing allegiance
to our faith. The woman not infrequently flinches at this
point, as social life is at once her special field, and her
vulnerable point. But Mrs. Smith was quite her husband's
equal in this matter. They received many a sharp chill
from many an old friend who felt that they had gone daft,
and were wandering astray in an unaccountable manner.
The closed door was often their only welcome, but this had
no deterrent effect upon their course of action.

Mr. Smith, finding himself, after long years of commercial
success, severely straitened financially through generous
though unwise endorsement of paper, made a settlement at
a fraction on a dollar with his creditors. After this arrange-
ment, a finality as they supposed, he betook himself to Cali-
fornia, with, as some one has said, " a very small venture in
money, and a very large capital in good and true principles."
With 800 passengers, he sailed March 1, 1849, and en-
countered long delay at the Isthmus. Having been educated

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 277

medically, and equipped spiritually, he became an y^scula-
pius to the sick with his Lilliputian pellets, and a missionary
to the sad with his little tracts.

Arrived in San Francisco in June, 1849, he became at once
a Midas, turning into gold everything that he touched. With
business acumen, he avoided prospecting, but purchased land,
and erected buildings which were rented before completion.
When terribly destructive fires threatened everything, they
veered just before they reached his property — just like the
spears in the hands of Penelope's suitors, which were always
deflected before they reached Ulysses. But Mr. Smith was
by no means a Plutus. He never loved gold for its own
sake, nor forgot his dear religion; and very soon after his
arrival he erected a neat little chapel for worship in connec-
tion with his office {Netv Jerusalem Magazine, vol. xxxvi,
p.25-27, July, 1863).

Robert L. Smith, the White Knight, returned to New York
in 1853, and, without a scrap of technical or legal obliga-
tion, made good his original business indebtedness to the
extent of one hundred cents on a dollar, to the astonishment
of his creditors, and in defiance of the letter that killeth.

After long years as treasurer of the General Convention,
he was called hence. And we renewed a dear old friendship
when the Roxbury Society was enriched by the removal here
of his widow, and two daughters — Mrs. John A. Thompson
and Mrs. Charlotte Hebbard.

Simon Henry Greene (1799-1885), Rhode Island manu-
facturer, built a New-Church Chapel on his own grounds
after the manner of Robert L. Smith. Greene was a man
of affairs, with a capacity for idealism, and a wide sense
of justice. Where did he get his moral courage, public
spirit, and vocational activity? Observe his great-great-great-
grandfather.

*Dr. John Greene (1590-1659), an English surgeon, ar-
rived with his family in 1635 at Salem, Mass. Heresy was
in the air; Winthrop tells us that a synod in Cambridge cata-

* The Greenes of Rhode Island compiled from Greene niss. by Louise
Brownell Clarke, N. Y. 1903.

278 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

logued "eighty-tvvo opinions, some blasphemous, others er-
roneous, and all unsafe." Greene shared Roger Williams'
views, was arrested, and fined for contempt of court, came
"under the ban of outlawry by name, and was forced to
submit to interference with, and destruction of, his property."
Greene soon followed Williams southward, and they became
two of the tw^elve baptized into the Baptist faith, and formed
the first Church in Providence of that name.

From the Narragansett Indian chief, Miantonomu, Dr.
Greene purchased a large landed estate in Warwick with a
sonorous, six-syllabled name, Occupasuetuxet. The Doctor's
grandson. Colonel Christopher Greene (1737-1781) was
grandfather to Simon the New Churchman, and lived where
die Chapel for worship now stands. He was a brother of
Gen. Nathanael Greene, who ranked next to George Washing-
ton in military ability. Christopher fought bravely, and
received a sword of honor from Congress which I have often
seen.

Simon H. Greene, after several adult years in Providence,
spent the last fifty years of his life at River Point, eleven
miles southward. I introduce the reader to some charac-
teristic hospitality.

A Rhode Island clam-bake, originating with the Wam-
panoag Indians under Chief Massasoit, and perfected by nine-
teenth century civilization, was given Tuesday, August 20,
1867. Large oval-shaped stones, pointing downwards, were
half sunken in the ground, and were heated to a high pitch
by a wood fire on top. Ashes and embers were swept off,
and a layer of wet seaweed spread over the heated stones,
and on these were placed clams in the shell, corn in the
husk, fish in cloth wrappings, and other edibles. Successive
layers of edibles were surmounted with more wet seaweed,
and the whole covered with heavy sailcloth to keep in the
steam. In forty-five minutes a feast was ready fit for Mount
Olympus. After this banquet came a little address by the
Rev. Abiel Silver, happy verses by the Rev. John WestaU,
the use of croquet and swing for the children, and dancing
by the young people to the music of harp, violin and comet.
Three hundred New Churchmen had come down in the boat

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 279

What Cheer to this Halsey Farm, from Providence, Paw-
tucket, Elmwood, River Point, Mansfield, Bristol, Fall River
and Foxboro (See New-Church Messenger, September 4,
1867).

Rev. Abiel Silver, on his last visit at River Point in 1880,
filled the Greene Chapel pulpit for a month. The building
held seventy-five. Mr. Greene's descendants furnished the
choir, Miss Susan Greene directing it with oratorio voice and
kindling spirit. Three of his sons, Henry, William, and
Christopher, were in River Point, gradually lightening his
Church and business cares, the former often reading service.
The factory was devoid of strikes, because of good feeling
between them and their hundreds of employees.

Simon Greene's ancestors loved and aided the Colonies
and the Republic that grew out of them ; therefore, after death,
they would love the Lord's kingdom as their country. Simon
himself administered righteously over his operatives; there-
fore, he would be made ruler in a larger sense hereafter.

XI

Life is somehow becoming to her.

— Henry James in The Other House.

We have met Mrs. Margaretta Lammot du Pont of Nemours
— wife, mother, and beneficent friend of the Church ; we will
now meet her as Lady Alfred du Pont of Goodstay, her later
home nearer Wilmington. I learned from her own lips the
ancestral story of her husband; therefore I will present his
grandparents.

Enter with me the spacious Goodstay drawing-room, and
observe the pedestal surmounted by a life-size bust of Cheva-
lier Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, in peruke, lace
ruffles, and embroidered waistcoat; on his shoulders rests a
fur-lined mantle; from a broad ribbon encircling his neck
depends a medal of the Polish order of Vasa; over his coun-
tenance spreads an expression of genial urbanity. Another
bust depicts his wife whose sweeping name it is a pleasure
to rehearse — Madame Nichol Charlotte Marie Louise Le
Dee Rencourt du Pont de Nemours. Picture to yourself her
lofty coiffure after the manner of the Bourbon Court, her
hair drawn upward from the forehead over a cushion, and
adorned with feather tips, elaborate with curls and puffs,
looped with strings of pearls. A long tapering spray bearing
twelve roses, and terminating in buds, rests gracefully on the
neck of this grande dame. She never saw America; but her
husband, who had drunk in liberty from the lips of Franklin
and Jefferson in France, enjoyed briefly the United States,
until his death in 1817.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours of Paris, bom in 1739,
was appointed in 1774 assistant to Turgot, the Controller-

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 281

General of finance. Carlyle tells us that, in 1787, at the royal
summoning of the Chamber of Notables, du Pont de Nemours
was chosen secretary in preference to Mirabeau who coveted
the office, and "glared with flashing sun-glance."

In 1793 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lost their heads,
the party of the Girondists fell from power, and du Pont was
imprisoned and marked for death. He escaped the guillo-
tine through the blunder of an official. The turnkey carried
the list of names in his hand, and marked with chalk the
outer doors of tomorrow's Tournee (batch of victims for
the guillotine). The door of Mr. du Pout's cell, as his grand-
daughter described it to me, revolved on a swivel in the
center; and, when marked, was wrong side out. On being
closed for the night, the terribly ominous inscription was on
the inner side; and when, in 1794, the head of Robespierre
fell, the head of du Pont was saved. He had long since
married the lady with the stately costume — Mademoiselle
Nichol Charlotte Marie Louise Le Dee de Rencourt.

And now a beautiful young girl comes into the story —
Gabrielle Josephine de la Fite de Pelleport, the daughter of
a Marquis. And she became an orphan at twelve, and Ursu-
line and Benedictine Abbayes were not safe places in these
troublous times; and for six years she came under the care
"of Marie Antoinette. And Gabrielle lived at Court, and
practiced with her Majesty the art of tapisserie (needlework),
which she called a joli ouvrage. And I have seen at Good-
stay a piece of embroidery — roses in colors on white satin
— which was made by the Queen herself, and presented to
Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Pelleport.

And then the King and Queen went to the guillotine; and,
in this frightful year 1793, Chevalier du Font's elder son
found the hapless Gabrielle; and she called him "/e beau
Victor" and they married the next year, and came to live
at Bergen Point, New Jersey, where, under his own roof, he
entertained Joseph Bonaparte, and he furnished the ship in
which Jerome Bonaparte and his wife, Elizabeth Patterson
Bonaparte, sailed for Europe in 1805. The son of Mr. and
Mrs. Victor du Pont was Rear-Admiral Samuel Francis du
Pont of the United States Navy, for whom Dupont Circle in

282 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Washington is named. He was a man of great courtliness,
and his home a treasure house of rare curios.

But the younger son, Eleuthere Irenee, bom to Chevalier
du Pont in 1771, especially claims our attention, as the
father-in-law of Mrs. Alfred du Pont. In the year 1791, at
the age of twenty he married a French Protestant demoiselle
of sixteen, named Sophie Madeleine Dalmas, who was capable
of romantic fortitude, quick resource, and fine energy, rep-
resenting power in her personal influence.

Disguised as a French peasant clad in blue, carrying her
little daughter, Victorine Elizabeth, a year old, on one arm,
and a basket of provisions on the other, she mysteriously
obtained entrance to her husband and to her father-in-law
in prison, bringing them loving aliment for the soul, and
nutritious aliment for the bodv. T have seen a copy of her
picture in this guise painted by the fashionable artist, Jean
Baptiste Isabey.

Finally, untoward French conditions and alluring Ameri-
can ideals led to the exodus of the liberty-loving du Ponts.
They landed after a tempestuous sailing voyage of three
months at Newport, Rhode Island, on January the first, 1800.
Observing the poor quality of the American powder, they
established in 1802 manufactories for producing that ex-
plosive on the banks of the Brandywine River near Wilming-
ton, Delaware. Eleuthere Irenee, head of the younger branch
of the family, had the French instinct for affairs, and be-
came widely known as " E. I. du Pont."

Irenee's son x\lfred married, in 1824, Margaretta Lammot.
He was called to the other life in 1856; and she wore the
widow's cap during the forty-seven years that she survived
him. She was tall, with fine dark eyes. Her character was
one of much dignity, and her manners expressed reserve.

Sorrow found entrance into Goodstay at the sudden de-
parture of Mrs. du Pont's son Lammot to the higher life.
She writes me of the accident:

" Indeed, you cannot imagine what a crushing blow it is
to us all. ... It is all over, I am resigned, and cannot
question the mysterious Providence. ... Do come, dear,
and cheer us up. Best love to your mother, I think of her

Mfm

s>%/^

Mrs. Margaretta Lummot dii Pont

A comer of the Jroni i<,nh <</ -(.ootls

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 283

often, wishing we could meet, but that will be for the next
world."

In order to give a fitting environment to Mrs. du Font's
daughter Paulina, I have postponed the description of Good-
stay. Picture to yourself a spacious stone house surrounded
by about forty acres; partly pastoral, appealing to the love
of rural life; partly aesthetic, with pink tamarisks, Japanese
snowballs, Oriental Ginkgo tree, and Camperdown elm; and
with a multitude of home-loving flowers.

For eleven years Paulina continued admirably the tradi-
tions of the family regarding hospitality and Church devo-
tion. Her maids, when disabled, had special reason to call
her blessed. She had the du Pont ambition to excel, and
played games spiritedly. She was accomplished in embroid-
ery, and her fine needlework reminded us that the spiritual
raiment of this King's Daughter was of wrought gold. Her
goodness was not shallow applique, but was interwoven
through and through the conduct of life. She was one of those
who do a multitude of kind things known only to the recipient,
and to the recording angel.

Mrs. Henry Thompson (Louisa Barnard) was a belle in
her youth, and a lady of great personal beauty which she
retained through the years; but the spirit that played over
her mobile face was more beautiful still. She possessed to
an exceptional degree the social graces without their limi-
tations. She lived among people who place distinct value
on amenities of demeanor; and she deserved entrance to any
European Court because of her high-bred courtesy. And
it was a moral triumph that she was able to exercise gracious
tact without compromising anything genuine,

I am reminded of a sermon once presented by Rev. Phillips
Brooks on the subject of untruthfulness. He did not speak
of the broad lies of which the world accuses the bad boy;
but expatiated on the indirect, sinuous lie of drawing-room
life: the insincere manner, the false welcome, the purely
conventional phrase, the disingenuous compliment. No one
ever needed that sermon less than Mrs. Thompson.

Proud of her husband, and devoted to her six children, I

284 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

recall the christening of one of them under her own roof.
She stood unconscious of all else, bearing on her face the
rapt expression of a saint, absorbed in the holy solemnity
of the occasion.

She was indulgent up to a certain point with her grand-
children. In their country home, the little naturalist used
to put soft shell crabs in the washbowl, and hard shell crabs
in the bathtub, and green worms under glass on the side-
board; the little folk might go barefoot by day; but at the
well-appointed dinner table at night they must be little gentle-
men, properly clad; they might come for a simple dessert
for the sake of their table manners; and then, as the youngest
goes off to bed, he kisses his hand to the portrait of the
absent grandpapa, and says, Good night.

The very words that fell habitually from Mrs Thompson's
lips exercised toward each other her unvarying courtesy.
They showed consideration, by giving each other room; they
did not, after the modern manner, come tumbling precipitately
out of her mouth, clipping off each other's tails on the way.
A certain tranquil leisure was observed by the very letters
in the words which themselves received courteous enuncia-
tion; her whole language w^as well-bred. And yet the polite-
ness of the words and of their constituent letters was, like
her elegance of manner, a part of her real self.

The early married life of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Thompson
was spent in New York, and they were my father's parishion-
ers. Their dining-room table was always extended as an
invitation to hospitality; and so frequently were we there,
that I used to say that the portable Silver family lived on
wheels. A certain occasion gave Mrs. Thompson a test for
quick wit. She had had a goodly company there, and she
invited them all to come again to dinner on a fixed date.
They decided secretly among themselves to surprise her by
coming as a Dickens party, each choosing a character from
David Copperfield, and appearing in appropriate costume.
The hostess was fully equal to the occasion, knew her Dickens
quite as well as they, and, during the entire evening, ad-
dressed each according to his or her own proper character.

She was bom in South Carolina, and was glad to meet

Mr. Henry G. Tht

»

Mrs. Henry G. Thompson

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 285

here a Charleston school friend — Mrs. Cornelius T. Dun-
ham — who was herself like a beautiful benediction to the
Roxbury Society. Mrs. Thompson had at the south warm
friends, and those dear of kin. One day during the Civil
War some one said under her own roof that Charleston ought
to be razed to the ground and sowed with salt. Her amiabil-
ity and self-command were equal to the occasion. As soon
as the speaker had gone, she brought out a little photograph
album containing counterfeit presentments of many valued
friends engaged on the Confederate side; and, pointing to
one, she said with a gleam of fun in her eyes:

"0 Ednah, this is the loveliest rebel, the very loveliest
rebel that you ever saw! "

Come with me in the year 1884 to the Thompsons' country
home with its sixty acres of pleasure grounds at Milford,
Connecticut, near New Haven. The only other guest is Mr.
Henry Barnard, a septuagenarian. He is kinsman of our
hostess, and a warm educational co-worker of Horace Mann.
Some of his works on juvenile education are of international
value. He has crossed the ocean fourteen times. On his
first voyage, fifty years earlier, he, a quite young man, carried
letters of introduction, which soon became superfluous, as
he passed from one English home to another, unconsciously
recommending himself. He was already familiar with every
line of Wordsworth, and enjoyed many a walk with the poet
in the charming Lake country. He was a guest of Thomas
Carlyle, and liked that invigorating Scotch talker. His life
in London was a series of dinner parties where each man
present, like the Duke of Argyle, was known beyond the
border of his own land. Crossing to France, Mr. Barnard,
in the day of Louis Philippe, met Guizot, and especially
Thiers. Imagine the pleasure of a visit in a country house
three miles from a postoffice, where leisure abounded as
in Milford, where we might listen to the excellent talk of a
man like Mr. Henry Barnard; a man worthy of his delightful
niece, the hostess.

I will close by relating a bit of psychological experience.
A friend once said that she had heard the theory that two
people make one, but that she never saw three people that

286 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

make one until she saw the Silver family. This statement
was elucidated unconsciously on a certain evening. We, the
three Silvers, were sitting in our parlor, while the wind
moaned, and howled, and whistled, outside. We were pretty
much talked out, when I suggested that we all remain in
perfect silence for five minutes, during which time we should
each select, from among any or all the people we knew in
the world, the person whom we would prefer to see entering
our parlor.

And we all selected Mrs. Henry Thompson.

Anna La Motte, my fidus Achates, and I agree upon our
formula of comparative values:

" The very inmost place in the heart is for the Lord alone."

The inner shrine is for marriage.

The court just without is for friends, many and varied."

But there is reserve even in the outer court. Only mo-
mentarily do I get glimpses of her hidden reservoirs of feel-
ing. Let the reader therefore imagine her rich, highly en-
dowed nature, and our half -century of friendship.

Mrs. Joseph Kennedy Smyth is preceded by her sisters.

Louisa Ogden (Mrs. William Turner), disciplined by the
transition to another life of all her home treasures, writes
New-Church books of earnest conviction.

Matilda Ogden (Mrs. William A. Wellman) at her mar-
riage takes to her heart her husband's six motherless chil-
dren, and adds four more. And when on one of my visits,
several of the eight fine lads rush in at the front door like
King Boreas himself, and play parlor games with terrific
strenuosity, she is as tranquil as an Indian summer, saying,
" Ednah, I love boys, and I have no nerves."

Anna Cora Ogden (Mrs. James Mowatt) enters a public
dramatic life with her husband's approval, and, with the
sincere desire to elevate the stage, she never lowers her
standard. She loves her Smyth nephews, and I recall her
asking them, '^ Qui est Vange de la maison?" And the
smallest golden-haired cherub replies with childish grace,
" Cest moir

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, actress and author of the play
''Fashion," first presented in 1845, revived in 1917

Mrs. Julia Ogden Smyth

(^

Mrs. Lucy Lazelle Hobart Cutler

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 287

Mary Ogden (Mrs. Cephas G. Thompson), like Matilda
and Anna, was born near Bordeaux, France, where, from
1814 to 1825, their father, Mr. Gouveneur Ogden, had a
beautiful estate of thirty acres, all vineyards, orchards, gar-
dens, and pets. Mary marries an artist, enjoys the beautiful
visions belonging to her husband's vocation, and supplements
them by solid practical achievements.

(i) Julia Ogden, a little histrionic maiden under four,
helps to celebrate her father's fifty-third birthday in the
Ravenswood drawing-room at Astoria, Long Island, opposite
New York. She recites the prologue of a drama, Alzire, and
the Spanish and Moorish players must look out for their
laurels. When the curtain fails to descend promptly, she
tactfully helps out the situation by repeating the last line as
she curtsies and kisses her hand to the applause, backing
off the stage.

(ii) Julia is a bride of seventeen, standing at the altar of
Grace Church, New York, as the marriage blessing descends
upon her head and that of her New-Church husband, Mr.
Joseph Kennedy Smyth, to whom she is romantically attached.

(iii) She is hostess in their spacious home, Boscobel,
in the extreme norlhern part of Manhattan Island. Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant and family are guests of honor in the large
assemblage. The hero of Appomattox is taciturn by nature,
and is saved from current small talk by the tactful hostess.
In a large upper room, built for dramatics, she presents a
play wherein a susceptible young man during his country
visit meets successively four sisters; and Mrs. Smyth repre-
sents with consummate success each of the four strongly
contrasting maidens. Gen. Grant reciprocates. The visit
being prolonged by previous arrangement, he enters spirit-
edly the next morning into eight-handed croquet, a game
wholly unknown to him; and he suffers defeat in a soldierly
manner.

(iv) Heaven sends Mrs. Smyth eleven children, and she
might well represent the most devoted " Mother-love " in
Maeterlinck's Bluebird. Observe her in October, 1867, play-
ing anagrams, wherein she cleverly eclipses us all. Her
youngest little golden-haired boy is included in the game;

288 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

and as he spells out his g-o, go, and his t-o, to, his fond
mother pats him on the head and calls him her brave little
man.

(v) She is loyalty itself to the Church. However appre-
ciatively she enters into social life in Paris during their
eight years there; however gifted and accomplished in her
interchange of amenities during her leisurely, opulent life;
however alluring the world; her darling wish is this, that
one of her eight sons may be a New-Church clergyman; and
the Rev. Julian K. Smyth more than satisfies her mother's
heart. You should read her rapturous letter that lies before
me. I put her and Mrs. Cutler side by side as noble types
of rare and gracious women.

X

VIRGINIA AND THE NEW CHURCH

" The days are never quite so long

As in Virginia;
Nor quite so filled with happy song,

As in Virginia;
And when my time has come to die,
Just take me back and let me lie
Close to the Blue Ridge Mountains high

Down in Virginia."

THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA

The baronetcy of Cameron dates back to 1627, and was
created in the Scottish peerage for the Fairfaxes by King
Charles I. Readers should remember that there were in
Virginia two New-Church titled Fairfaxes of the same name:

Lord Thomas Fairfax, sixth baron of Cameron, bachelor,
living at Greenway Court, an estate twelve miles from Win-
chester.

Lord Thomas Fairfax, ninth baron of Cameron, benedict,
living at Vaucluse, an estate eight miles from Washington.

The earlier Lord Thomas Fairfax (1692-1781) was reared
in his ancestral home in Leeds Castle, Kent, which was built
in feudal times with eight solid towers, and a dark, grim
donjon. He lived under good Queen Anne, graduated at Ox-
ford, took a commission in a crack regiment, "The Blues,"
wrote for the Spectator, was intimate with Steele, and a good
friend of Addison. One day, after carriages, trousseaux, and
jewels had been ordered for Fairfax's marriage to a lady of
rank and beauty, she suddenly broke the engagement. Lately,
his musty marriage contract made ready for signature and

290 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

seals, has been found in Virginia. The lady's name is care-
fully effaced, but his remains, in grim defiance of fate.

Lord Fairfax sailed in 1746 for the American Colonies
to look after his 5,700,000 acres lying on both sides of
the Blue Ridge inherited from his maternal grandfather.
Lord Colepepper (or Culpepper).* He soon discovered the
mathematical talent of George Washington, aged sixteen,
and he employed him and another lad to survey his estate.
With red-skins for their guides ihey were to reconnoiter re-
gions haunted by bears, lurking panthers, elk and deer, and
they were to fill their slender purses with Fairfax silver, each
receiving "a doubloon, and sometimes six pistoles (about
twenty dollars) a day" (see Washington's Diary).

Lord Fairfax never erected his grand manor-house, but
spent his life at Greenway Court near Winchester in his lime-
stone hunting lodge, having a pillared veranda its entire
length, and wooden belfries above with vibrant tongues to
sound an alarm against raids by savages. Within were
racks for guns and shelves for fine old books. Here the
abstemious host dispensed good cheer lavishly and reaching
outside, helped the backwoodsmen to adjust boundaries, and
give quittances.

We recall in Thackeray's Virginians that at Lord Castle-
wood's funeral my Lord Fairfax followed immediately after
the mourners; and that Lady Castlewood ordained that " Lord
Fairfax was the only gentleman in the colony of Virginia
to whom she would allow precedence over her."

Fairfax was grieved when Washington, whom he had
trained and moulded, became a rebel. And when he heard
of the surrender of Comwallis at Yorktown, his poor old
Tory heart was broken.

" Take me to my bed," he said, turning to Joe, his faithful
black body-servant, " it is time for me to die."

Lord Fairfax, an excellent Latin scholar, owned a copy
of Swedenborg's Principia of 1746, the folio of which, with

* I am pleasantly indebted to Moncure D. Conway, himself a Virginian, who
writes pictorially and with scholarly knowledge in his Barons of the Potomac
and Raopahannock: The Grolier Club, N. Y., 290 pp. 1892. Also to Scrib-
ner's Monthly of 1879, vol. xviii, pp. 715-728, containing My Lord Fairfax of
Virginia by Constance Cary Harrison, his distant kinsman.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 291

the Fairfax inscription, the Rev. Frank Sewall has seen (Lon-
don New-Church Young People s Magazine, vol. vi, p. 65,
New Series, 1910). It is known that his Lordship possessed
himself of some of the theological works of Swedenborg,
and quietly distributed them. M. D. Conway, after exten-
sive exploration of facts and traditions, declares that " Lord
Fairfax had the distinction of being the earliest Sweden-
borgian in America." This is true, as he did precede James
Glen, although he did not, like him, make public, adver-
tised proclamation of the Writings to hearers in a hall.

In 1912 I was a guest near Bluemont, Virginia, in the
family of the late Charles G. Smith, a New Churchman who
had enriched during his long life the Societies at Chicago,
Urbana and Washington; and I found that his estate of 116
acres on the Blue Ridge was a part of the old Fairfax prop-
erty; and the family told me that Swedenborg's works are
still found scattered among the mountain farms.

Lord Fairfax was a great land-magnate, with early lux-
urious training, but he kept his poise. We read that " his o^vn
wants were few and his habits almost ascetic." There is
much in the Fairfaxes which made them intense in their con-
victions and loyal to their interpretation of right. It is em-
bodied in the noble old motto of the family:

Mon Dieu je serverai tant que je vivrai.

(I will serve my God as long as I live.)

After the death of Lord Fairfax, sixth baron, the Cameron
coronet crossed the Atlantic to his brother Robert at Leeds
Castle, making him seventh baron, returning later to rest
near the end of his life on the brow of Rector Bryan Fairfax,
eighth baron, father of the second New-Church Thomas Fair
fax. Bryan's sister, Anne Fairfax, married George Washing
ton's older brother Lawrence, and the families were intimate
The Father of his Country loved all the Fairfaxes, even the
Tory of Greenway Court, and the Tory Bryan. The latter
was reared on the opulent estate, Belvoir-on-the-Potomac, op-
posite Mt. Vernon; and he went wooing Elizabeth Gary in
her opulent home at Ceelys-on-the-James; and he took her as
a bride to his opulent new home, Towlsten-on-the-Potomac.
She is described as sitting in " a highbacked, harp-shaped

292 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

tapestry chair in a mouse-colored brocade dress, with ruffles
and pigeon-bertha of finest Mechlin lace." And her culinary
skill was equal to her social charm. , ^ , , ,

When fifty-two, Bryan Fairfax took Holy Orders and be-
came Rector of the quaint Christ Church, Alexandria, where
we love to visit, to see George Washington's pew, to go over
the cobble stones, apparently not relaid in a hundred years
on Cameron Street, to see the old Fairfax rectory with its
carved woodwork, window panes of curious patterns, and
brick-walled garden of roses. Bishop William Meade
(1789-1862) in his book. Old Churches, Ministers and
Families of Virginia, says:

" I take pleasure in recording the proofs o± genuine piety
in Reverend Bryan Fairfax," and he testifies to his sweetness
and dignity when endeavoring to dissuade Washington from
war with England.

All Rector Bryan Fairfax's children became strong ^lew
Churchmen except the short-lived Sally, who remained, 1
infer, an unwavering Churchman. She was a quaint, pre-
cocious child, and considered herself " especial regulator ot
her big brother Tommy." And when he went to London with
his father, she wrote the latter:

" Honor'd Sir, give my love to my Brother, I hope he wiii
acquire the polite assurance and affable chearfuhiess of a

gentleman. ^ .r m t^ i c

Your truly and most unaffectedly dutifull Daughter, ^.

Washington, from his towering height, looked down ap-
preciatively on the fascinating Sally. Here is a sketch of her
by Mrs. Burton Harrison's pictorial pen (m A Little Centen-
nial Maiden) as she looked at Washington's birthday ball,
in 1776, he forty-four, she seventeen:

" Sally wore a dress of white patnet over white satm, the
patnet trimmed with a vine of rose-colored satin leaves, a
pink rose in her hair with one white ostrich plume. She was
verv beautiful that night, and in high spirts, General Wash-
ington devoting himself to her especially and leading ott in
a minuet with her, when they were the observed ot all ob-
servers."

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 293

Lord Thomas Fairfax, ninth baron of Cameron, and son
of Rector Bryan Fairfax, is thus described by Mrs. Burton
Harrison of New York and Bar Harbor in her Recollections
Grave and Gay, pp. 389, 303 :

"Grandpapa was a devout Swedenborgian and had his
children baptized in that faith, some of them being subse-
quently rechristened in the Episcopal Church by their own
desire."

And again:

"He was in religion an advanced Swedenborgian; and,
one of the first Virginia gentlemen to do so, liberated all the
slaves belonging to his patrimonial estate and established
them in various trades."

Thomas Fairfax developed marked individuality. Observe
his success, in spite of heredity and environment. Cradled
in Toryism, he became a staunch American patriot; waited
upon by bond servants, he became a distinct opponent of
slavery; bearing an old name many times graced with heraldic
honors, he became democratically indifferent to titles of
nobility; sung to sleep by maternal lullabies issuing from
Episcopalian lips, he became a tenacious New Churchman.

George Washington, on December 11, 1796, says of the
beautiful Belvoir estate in full view across the Potomac from
Mt. Vernon:

"At present it belongs to Thomas Fairfax, son of Bryan
Fairfax, the gentleman who, as I say, will not take on him-
self the title of Baron of Cameron." The Cameron coronet
became buried in oblivion for more than a century, but was
resuscitated in 1908 by an act of Parliament, and reappeared
on the head of Thomas's English great-grandson, Albert
Kirby Fairfax (twelfth baron of Cameron), who has been a
guest in Boston drawing-rooms I am told. -

Thomas Fairfax of Alexandria was one of the first New
Churchmen in that region in 1790 according to the New-
Church Messenger, vol, xlvii, p. 187. Daniel Lammot named
his eldest son for Thomas's New-Church brother, Ferdinand.
Wilson M. C. Fairfax was the son of Ferdinand; and Neill,
a writer on Virginia, tells us that Wilson served in 1840,

294 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1841, on a surveying expedition under the Board of United
States Commissioners. At the institution of the Society of the
New Jerusalem at Washington, April 12, 1846, among the
nine members who signed the constitution were Nathaniel C.
Towle, Eunice Makepeace Towle, his wife, and Wilson M. C.
Fairfax {Neiv-Church Messenger, Jan. 22, 1892, vol. kii,
p. 402).

Rector Bryan Fairfax, through his second marriage became
father of Anne, who, as Mrs. Charles J. Catlett passed to
the other life December 28, 1849. The Medium, vol. ii, p.
272, gives a long tribute: public New-Church worship was
" the chosen resort of her spirit, and she breathed an atmos-
phere suited to the respiration of her inmost life." As a wife
she was above all praise, and children bear testimony to
her self-sacrificing love.

THE CARTERS OF VIRGINIA

"King Carter" at Corotoman on the Rappahannock was
the first income collector on the 5,700,000 Culpepper-Fairfax
acres. This principality, largely a piece of royal favoritism,
whose owners were sometimes non-resident, was wholly tilled
by the colonists; its income seemed an example of unearned
increment, and Culpepper might have been haunted by the
ghost of Henry George, if that political economist had lived
earlier. "King Carter," as income-collector, shared the op-
probrium. Bishop Meade, although giving some admirable
moralizing in his Old Churches, vol. i, p. 32, on " the need-
lessness of great landed and other possessions," defends Car-
ter on pp. 113, 114, saying that he, personally, was "not
oppressive or overbearing."

Councillor Robert Carter, grandson of " King Carter," re-
tained the family home, Nomony Hall, on the Corotoman
estate in the Tide Water region of eastern Virginia. He
was independent in spirit, and frank in speech. Conway re-
cords Carter's reception of Swedenborg's Writings, declaring
in the Open Court of September, 1889, that he knew of the
New Church in 1778. But the Rev. W. H. Hinkley points to
original papers by Col. Carter, published subsequently, which

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 295

have mucli historical value, and establii-h the fact that he
became acquainted with the doctrines in 1790, by means of
a small work, the " Treatise on Influx," sent from Baltimore
to one of his neighbors. (See New-Church Messenger, May
6, 1891, vol. Ix, p. 281; also, for Carter's death in 1804,
vol. Ixii, p. 251.) Bishop Meade in his own work, page
111, says regarding Carter:

"Early in life his disposition was marked by a tendency
to wit and humour. Afterwards he was the grave Councillor,
and always the generous philanthropist. At a later day he
became scrupulous as to the holding of slaves, and manu-
mitted great numbers. The subject of religion then engrossed
his thoughts. . . . After a time he embraced the theory of
Swedenborg. . . . All the while he was a most benevolent
and amiable man."

Councillor Robert Carter opened up a correspondence on
July 17, 1792, with Rector Bryan Fairfax of Christ Church
in Alexandria, three of whose children, Thomas, Ferdinand,
and Ann, became New Churchmen. The Rector had already
knowTi Swedenborg, and received gladly the Carter gift of
the first volume of the Francis Bailey edition of the True
Christian Religion, and other works. Carter's Diary presents
their extensive interchange of letters, and the Rector's in-
tensely interesting theological views. For fourteen years
previously he had been studying certain doctrines. Regard-
ing Swedenborg's statements, he "heartily adopts" some
points, seriously questions others, endeavors to analyze
widely, never accepts them as a whole. And throughout he
shows conscientious regard for the Scriptures, and an earnest
desire to be led aright. (See extensive extracts from Carter's
Diary in article by Rev. John Whitehead in Neiv-Church
Messenger, June 13, 1917.)

Let me lead you down the Carter genealogical path, (i)
"King Carter," (ii) John Carter, (iii) John Carter of Ludley,
(iv) Edward Carter of Cleveland, (v) John Hill Carter of
Faulkland, (vi) Charles Shirley Carter married Lucy Meade
Hite, (vii) Miss Jane Loughborough Carter, a New-Church
lady and a niece of Rev. Lewis F. Hite, was in 1918 matron
in the Urbana University.

296 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

THE CABELLS OF VIRGINIA

Go with me on a December Sunday in 1903, and witaess
a scene worthy the brush of an Old Master. Let us enter
the beautiful little blue granite Church of the New Jerusalem
at Wilmington, Delaware. The central stone arch enclosing
the chancel is the frame of the picture. Within it is the
tall courtly figure of the Rev. Phillip Barraud Cabell. His
patrician head, touched with the silver of his sixty-seven
years, is bent over his manuscript, as rain clouds tone down
to a duller tint the dim religious light through leaded win-
dows. Over against the suppressing effect of the sky from
without is a radiance not of this world. The clergyman's
strikingly fine countenance is illumined by the spirit from
within, as he presents his Master's message. He is nearing
the other world as he gives his last Christmas sermon.

He points out the pagan festivals of the past which only
throw into high relief the beautiful Christian observances
associated with the Holy Child, and His subsequent glorified
life. The Divine Humanity of our Lord and His vivifying
redemptive work are forcibly set forth on that morning as
Mr. Cabell leads us on and upward to the celestial heaven
of the highest angels. I never saw him again, but I have never
forgotten that he opened to the eye of our souls a glimpse
of the supernal glory above.

I have sketched Mr. Cabell's saintly picture in an ecclesi-
astical setting. Let us now, in May, 1917, see Edgewood,
his early married home at Warminster, Nelson County, Vir-
ginia, situated on the winding James river with its richly
wooded banks. As we approach the house we traverse a level
lawn shaded by locusts and maples which, conscious of their
minor stature, pay tribute to the gigantic oaks majestically
dominating the scene. Feathered songsters warble us a wel-
come, and among them we detect the oriole, the crested wren,
and the robin.

The Cabell mansion is of wood of a pale indefinite yellow
tint with slatted or Venetian blinds. It is set on a high brick
foundation punctured with frequent windows which amply
light the seventeen compartments of the spacious cellar. The

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 297

central part was built about 1808 by a grand-uncle, Senator
Joseph Carrington Cabell (1778-1856), an ardent worker
for the University of Virginia, a visitor to institutions of
learning at Milan, Padua, Rome, Naples, Leyden, Oxford
and Cambridge, a guest of Pestalozzi, and a student of
Cuvier at Paris.

We will now return to Edgewood. The central two-story
division of the house is flanked by short wings about eighteen
feet square. Adjoining these lateral wings are long trans-
verse wings two stories high, running at right angles with
the front of the house. Before us is the eastern porch, twenty
by ten feet, and on it stands our hostess, Mrs. Philip Cabell,
as we are driven up behind her mules, white Kate, and brown
Beck. She says,

" Miss Ednah, a warm welcome! You will find a Damascus
rose awaiting you in your room. I placed it there for you.
And," she continued, as we entered the great hall, or living-
room, " there your father stood when he baptized my little
two-year-old son, Joseph Hartwell, during his missionary
visit in December, 1865."

This central hall, about nineteen by twenty-five feet is bi-
sected by a three-arched screen of fluted hand-carved wood-
work, through, and over which, we see the opposite wall, and
the central door opening into a duplicate pillared porch on
the west. An arched door on the left leads us, called by the
most musical of Japanese gongs, into the dining-room rich in
the famous Virginia good cheer. An arched door on the
right of the hall leads into the music room, seventeen feet
square, where Madame stands before her foreign harp of
satinwood with a bit of beautiful inlaid work in rosewood.
The instrument is crowTied by angels in low relief with harps
in their hands. Just below, in high relief, are other angels
— coroneted and winged — carrying wreaths. At the base
are spirited angels in the act of flight bearing their harps aloft.
The instrument was, in Bible phrase, "a pleasant harp" to
Rev. Philip Cabell, as his wife soothed his last weeks of
illness. We greatly enjoyed her rendering of Hausselman's
Lullaby Song, where sweeping arpeggios across the strings by
the left hand represent the rocking of the cradle which grows

298 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

slower and softer as the baby falls asleep to the mother's
song rendered by the right, after which the singer gently steals
away. Next comes The Russian Exile s Lament full of the
sorrow of homesickness, followed by the gay and merry
Humoresque of Dvorak. Her height and erectness as she
stands before the harp remind us of her ancestress.

The bronze-colored Princess Matoaca of Werowocomoco,
otherwise known as Pocahontas, was married in 1613, at
the little Episcopal Church at Jamestown, to John Rolfe. He
obtained Gov. Dole's consent, by saying that she was one
"to whom my heartie and best thoughts are and have been
a long time intangled and enthralled in so intricate a laborinth
that I was even a wearied to unwind myself thereout."

Thomas Rolfe, son of John and Pocahontas, married Jane
Poythress, and their daughter Jane married Col. Boiling of
Boiling Hall near Bradford, England. The unbroken line
of Boilings brings us down to the ninth generation, Julia C.
Boiling, who, at Boiling Hall on the James in Virginia mar-
ried, in 1861, Philip Barraud Cabell. His wedding gift
to her was a spray of roses and buds in pearls, and a wealth
of noble personal qualities.

THE CAMPBELLS OF VIRGINIA

Let us visit Liberty Hall where a Campbell will come for
his bride. This mansion, near Edgewood, is on a part of the
" 26,000 acres of picked land " handed down from the Eng-
lish emigrant. Dr. William Cabell. (See The Cabells and
Their Kin, 641 pp., Houghton Mifflin Co., 1895.) Liberty
Hall was spacious, and tree-embowered, with a pillared semi-
circular porch, surrounded by acres which had been in the
family 150 years.

Here lived Nathanael Francis Cabell, a Harvard Law
School graduate, enjoying his library of more than 3,000
volumes, and eagerly accepting Noble's Appeal as "a pure
and living stream." At twenty-four he married Anne, daugh-
ter of Brig.-Gen. John Hartwell Cocke of the War of 1812,
who lived at Bremo, Fluvanno Co., on the James, on an es-
tate of imperial acres still retained in the family.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 299

Mr. Cabell was of commanding stature, with a patrician
bearing, and a certain reserve which fenced off intrusion,
although Liberty Hall was graciously hospitable to guests,
especially New-Church missionaries, as Revs. Frank Sewall,
Willard H. Hinkley, Abiel Silver, and Richard de Charms
could testify. From the latter, Mr. and Mrs. Cabell, and
their little son, Philip Barraud Cabell, received the sacra-
ment of baptism. I have met Mr. and Mrs. Cabell during
their visits to the Lammots. I looked up to his wisdom, was
awed by his personality, and loved his wife.

A little before Mrs. Nathanael Francis Cabell's departure
to a higher life, heaven sent her a little daughter, Frances
Grace, who was educated at the famous Edgehill school near
Monticello, founded by the Randolph granddaughters of
Thomas Jefferson. As Miss Cabell will add Campbell to her
name, we will follow that family; and as all roads lead to
Rome, so many a New-Church Virginia line leads back to a
Cabell.

Dr. John Jordan Cabell, before the year 1790, made a
discovery, recorded in the New-Church Messenger for Febru-
ary 17, 1904.

" In passing one day an auction shop, where at the moment
was being sold a small table with a book upon it, the doctor
made a bid, 'Twenty-five cents!' and hurried on. . . . The
book proved to be a copy of ' Heaven and Hell.' Struck by
the title, then strange to him, he at once began to read, and
became so absorbed that it was daylight in the morning be-
fore he retired to rest. To his wife's repeated remonstrances
during the night, he would say: 'This is what I have been
looking for all my life. I cannot sleep yet.' "

Dr. Cabell's daughter Judith married Richard K. Kralle,
identified with the New Church in Baltimore; and the Doctor's
granddaughter, Mary Kralle, married Nathanael Campbell
(1824-1867), a brilliant lawyer, and a member of the New
York Society under Rev. Abiel Silver. The latter christened
Nathanael's young son, Richard Kenna.

Richard Kenna Campbell, whose family had been identified
with Virginia a hundred years, carried away Frances Grace
Cabell from Liberty Flail as his bride. As a lawyer he was

300 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

appointed by President Roosevelt as member of a commission
for investigation and reform of the immigration service. Out
of it grew a distinct bureau, which the press has called the
fountain head of a new citizenship, with Mr. Campbell as
Commissioner of Naturalization, a position he still holds
(1920). We, at the Philadelphia New-Church Convention
in 1917 recall his admirable address on The Soul of America,
which, with a high ideal outlook appealed to us concretely
to use our consciences in choosing financial securities. Mr.
Campbell's son, Lieut. Philip Barraud Campbell, is the fifth
New Church generation from Dr. John Jordan Cabell.

THE EARLYS OF VIRGINIA

The Earlys are descended from the Irish on the Isle of
Saints in the ancient pentarchate of Ulster. Their story is
warlike, fiery, tumultuous; did you ever know an Irish story
that was dull? The Gaelic title of this Ulster clan was
O'Moalmocheirghe. Now names like this were not pleasant
to the royal ears of the English kings — the Henrys and the
Edwards. Sometimes the names were abbreviated; or were
simply translated; and as "moch eirigh" meant "early to
rise," the name Early sprang into existence (see S. S. Early's
History of his family, 1896).

Jeremiah Early of this clan came to Virginia before the
year 1700: and Samuel Henry Early, a direct descendant of
Jeremiah, married, in 1846, the daughter of John Jordan
Cabell, the eighteenth-centur\^ pioneer of our faith. Samuel's
brother, Major-General Jubal A. Early (1816-1894) we rec-
ognize as a prominent Confederate guerrilla chief in our Civil
War.

Mv father visited Samuel Early at Lynchburg late in 1865,
and baptized his son John Cabell Early ( 1848-1907). The
latter's wife, Mrs. Mary W. Early, has been known to us
for forty years through her articles — thoughtful, earnest,
and lucid — in the New-Church Messenger. Mr. Early went
to the other Avorld years ago. greatly esteemed and beloved.

Go with me to Lynchburg, Virginia, and visit the widowed
Mrs. Mary W. Early. By carriage we reach the suburban

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 301

house of soft-colored gray wood contrasting well with the
dark red slated roof. She meets us with the handsome Vir-
ginia hospitality, and we accept proffered seats on the gener-
ous south-western porch. A small portion of the one hundred
Early acres lies enclosed before us. In the foreground,
throwing slanting afternoon shadows on the shaven lawn, are
linden, locust, catalpa and Norway maple trees. Around
the garden space is the universal, utilitarian wire fence de-
vised by man; but God, who made the lilies of Canaan, and
who loves beauty, has completely hidden the prosaic wire
with a magnificent mass of rambler roses, and pale yellow
honeysuckles. Let us linger a moment for the amber and
scarlet of the sunset behind the Blue Ridge at our right
fading into the bluest of blue shadows; and then, entering
the hall, lined with books at the left, and armorial devices
in front, we pass on to the dining-room, giving evidence
of the modern Virginia ladies' practical qualities in superin-
tending orchard, garden, dairy and kitchen.

We will spend Sunday morning, June 3, 1917, in Mrs.
Early's spacious living-room, where she conducts her habitual
simple service weekly. Today, she reads aloud Rev. Clar-
ence Lathbury's excellent sermon on Moses, Aaron, and Hur,
which is preceded by Bible reading, responses, and the Lord's
Prayer, in which we participate. Her daughters, with no New-
Church public service nearer than Richmond, have been kept
in our faith, and have received the rite of confirmation.

I accepted the proffered hospitality of Warminster and
Lynchburg with grateful esteem for my hostesses, whom it is a
great privilege to know; and with a historical desire to breathe
a bit of pre-war plantation life. I heard from them a descrip-
tion of Confederate experiences a month before Appomattox.
Strong in Union sympathies over the Civil War myself, I yet
saw some of its aspects through their eyes. They had a cer-
tain breadth of spirit; and there came over me a wave of
conviction, that, in the Divine economy of the universe there
was something larger than the blue and the gray. I had gone
to see, in retrospect, plantation life; I had had a glimpse of
eternity!

302 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

THE MOSBYS OF VIRGINIA

Earlier pupils in the Waltham New-Church School learned
to love Miss Ella F. Mosby; and readers of our various
periodicals recall her thoughtful, gentle-spirited essays,
verses, and reviews. Her book, The Ideal Life, gives us her
high standards, and her aspirations.

Again the Cabell refrain: Mr. Campbell and Mr. Early
were descended from Dr. John Jordan Cabell. Mrs. Early
and Miss Mosby were descended from Dr. John Jordan
Cabell's brother Frederick.

John Ware Mosby, Ella's father, was near kinsman to
Col. John C. Mosby, the Confederate guerrilla leader of
"Mosby's Rangers." In the golden October days of 1831
John Ware Mosby brought his Cabell bride to their perma-
nent home. Valley Farm. Later, you may picture him read-
ing the Arcana on his broad porch, or receiving baptism from
Rev. Abiel Silver, or assemljling his negroes on the lawn in
1859, that Mr. Silver might talk to them about the Good
Massa in heaven, and what they must do if they wanted to go
and live with Him. They paid eager attention with shining
eyes, called it " mighty good preachin'," and gave plantation
songs in return.

Mr. Nathanael Francis Cabell was a neighbor of the
Mosby s, as distances go in rural Virginia, and near Liberty
Hall he erected a Chapel after the manner of Messrs. Cary,
Green, Smith, Steiger and Worcester, who built similarly
on their own land. In this quiet forest Chapel of the Cabells,
Ella Mosby, with strong appreciation of the solemnity and
high significance of baptism, received this sacrament from
Mr. Silver in 1865.

Miss Mosby visited us in Roxbury in 1888. Because of
her studious and loving companionship with flowers, I bor-
rowed an herbarium of representative Colorado flora col-
lected by a scientist. Dr. George G. Kennedy (himself splen-
didly equipped and the peer in this respect of any Harvard
professor) joined us; and our two valued guests turned
over the leaves, and greeted the flowers again and again with

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 303

familiar recognition. It is a pleasure to recall Miss Mosby's
dark eyes glowing with enthusiasm, and 'he essential sweet-
ness of her voice.

THE GREENWAYS OF VIRGINIA

Edward M. Greenway was reared in Abingdon oif in nar-
row pointed, southwestern Virginia, and he grew up tall,
like the Virginia oaks and the heroes of Homer. When he
was an old man with white hair and a lonely hearthstone, I
heard him descant, in inadequate human language, on the
beautiful commingling of the rose and the lily in a certain
maiden's cheek of long ago; and he told us how he appealed
to her father. He recited to him all the wrong things he
had done from his boyhood up, and then asked him for his
daughter Mary Taylor. His frankness won. The marriage
took place in Bakimore on January 21, 1817, the bride being
nineteen. They settled in New York, and five children gath-
ered around their hearthstone, and were brought in 1832 for
baptism to Rev. John Doughty. Later, they became Mr.
Silver's parishioners. Mr. Greenway was tall, stately, re-
served, punctilious, rich in capacity for warm friendship,
and immovable in his loyalty to his religion. She was em-
bodied unselfishness. Her faith was so strong, and her knowl-
edge so clear, that she met death as one might welcome a
dear friend.

THE HITES OF VIRGINIA

The Rev. Lewis F. Hite, Professor of Philosophy in our
Theological School, and Editor-in-chief of the New-Church
Revieiv, represents another Virginia family which was en-
riched by the light of our faith. We will go back to his great-
great-grandfather.

Baron Hans Joist Hite (1685-1760) lived in Alsace. The
spelling of his surname varied — sometimes Heydt, and some-
times even Hydhdt; by which we recognize the union of
French and Dutch stock. Having married Anna Maria Du-
bois, he quitted Strasburg for America in 1710; and he took
with him a little colony of sixteen families in his own good
ships, the schooner " Swift," and the brigantine " Friendship."

304 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

These emigrants were to be settlers on his prospective lands.

After tentative efforts, Baron Hite finally spelled home
with a capital H when he settled in 1730 on the northern
side of the Virginia Blue Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley.
He shortly bought a land grant of forty thousand acres, and
also obtained an "' order of Council " for one hundred thou-
sand acres more, on certain conditions of settlement which
he fulfilled handsomely, having kept his original sixteen
families with him, and winning later immigrants, until his
settlers numbered fifty-four households.

Sixteen years after Baron Hite settled on his 140,000-
acre estate. Lord Thomas Fairfax came as a neighbor at
Greenway Court to look after his Culpepper inheritance of
5,700,000 acres. The Blue Ridge Mountains still echo with
traditions of Fairfax's distribution of Swedenborg's Writings.
Imagination pictures Fairfax, the religious pioneer, convert-
ing Hite as his disciple.

But alas! their relation was that of "Joist Hite versus
Fairfax," in litigation handed down to descendants, and
lasting thirty-seven years. In 1786, when the spiritual ears
of the original contestants were deaf to earthly contests, the
final decision of the court was for Hite: "that Fairfax had
no claim against settlers who held Minor Grants for land
west of the Blue Ridge prior to 1738." As I understand
the matter, there were two kinds of British emigrants — one
received vast tracts as an expression of royal favoritism; the
other held the land for the sake of real colonial development;
and Baron Hite filled out the latter requirement.

From Baron Hite, who so honorably aided, by his fifty-
four households of settlers, in developing our new country,
we come down to his great-grandson, Hugh Holmes Hite
(1816-1887), who, by his moral courage, asserted his con-
viction of right. This was tested after his reception of
Swedenborg's Writings, which he discovered through an at-
tack upon them in the New York Observer. He had come
into close association with the Episcopal Church through his
marriage with Anne Randolph Meade, niece of Bishop Wil-
liam Meade, who was a spiritual power in the state which
he had diligently traversed in the interest of his Church.

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH 305

In order to realize the stamina of character in Hugh
Holmes Hite which enabled him to espouse the New Church
openly, it is necessary to picture the environment in those
days. The Episcopal Church in which he was bred had
strong power and prestige, and exerted a pressure often
unrecognized. Social intercourse between plantations was
delightful, the " Virginia Gentleman " being the product of
rural life, leisure, education, and public spirit; good private
libraries were found on the large estates; Mr. Hite, who
loved books and pursued history, biography, and religious
literature, also loved social life; he added high intelligence
to the interchange of amenities; social ostracism threatening
his adoption of our faith was not easy to bear. But he had
the intellectual independence, the high courage, and the
moral determination, to espouse the cause of the New Church.

Thus ends the story of the Virginia Fairfaxes, Carters,
Cabells, Campbells, Earlys, Mosbys, Greenways, and Hites.
Except the Fairfaxes, I have personally met New Churchmen
representing all of these families, and directly bearing their
names.

INDEX

1835-1913
1831-1853
1843-1853
1809-1885
1745-1816
1706-1798
1714-1800
1744^1817
1756-1832
1802-1863
-1833
1795-1856

1817-1911

1844-1907
1840-1914
1763-1844
1803-1874
1846-1912
1772-1834
1807-1891
1836-1904
1824-1867
1832-1914
1795-1881

1735-1815
-1804
1798-1894
1775-1868
1823-1898
1826-1905
1805-1861

Acer, Rev. John Curtis .... 178, 180, 186, 197
American Indians, Michigan aspects of . . 145-147
Animal Magnetism, aspects of ... . 160, 161

Arthur, T. S. . . 161

AsBURY, Bishop Francis 7, 40

Bailey, Robert 15

Mrs. Robert (Margaret McDill) ... 15
Francis, first disciple of Glen, 15, 16, 18-22, 26
Mrs. Francis (Eleanor Millar) . . 15,24
Abbe (Mrs. John Hough James) ... 21
Jane (Mrs. Frederick E. Eckstein) . . 22

Beardsley, Dr. Havilah 170

Bell, Judge Digby V 156, 157, 159

BiGELOW, John 197, 257-259

Bishops, see Asbury, Carroll, Chase,
Meade, Seabury and Swedberg.

Blanchard, William Lazelle 206

BowEN, Rev. Duane Vinton 214

BuLFiNCH, Charles 72, 198

Burnham, Edwin 153, 154, 171

Daniel H 248-250

Cabell, Dr. John Jordan, of Virginia . 299, 300, 302

" Nathanael Francis 298, 299, 302

" Rev. Philip Barraud . 40, 296, 297, 298, 299

Campbell, Nathanael 298, 299

" Sir Francis Joseph .... 269, 270

Carlyle, Thomas, pays tribute to Sampson

Reed's book 83, 84

Carroll, Bishop John 43, 44

Carter, Counsellor Robert .... 18, 42, 294, 295

" Timothy Harrington .... 78,93,94,95

Cary, Margaret 24, 27, 32, 56, 58-63, 103, 107-110, 117

Cate, Dr. S. M 199, 201, 202

Cerqua, Agostino E 191, 192

Chamberlain, Judge Ebenezer E 159

308 SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1775-1865 Chandler, Mrs. Esther Parsons 37, 38

1807-1886 " Theophilus Parsons 36,37

1816-1889 " PelegW 105,106,107,111

1842-1919 " Horace Parker 204, 267, 268

1775-1847 Chapman, Jonathan ("Johnny Appleseed") . 47-51

1775-1852 C^tASE, Philander, Bishop of Ohio and Hlinois, 147-149

1790-1855 Chauvenet, William Marc, from Lanquedoc, France, 34

1820-1870 " Professor William, U. S. N. . . . 34

1836-1917 Church, Col William C, of Army and

Navy Journal 197

1767-1850 Clark, Captain John 74, 75

1794-1848 " Alice (Mrs. Thomas Worces-
ter) 75,76,108,109

1801-1890 " Calvin 91

1803-1886 " Lydia (Mrs. Nathanael Hobart) . 91-93, 109

1805-1876 " Catherine (Mrs. Sampson Reed) . . 84,94

1808-1870 " Martha (Mrs. Timothy H. Carter) . . 93,94

1810-1884 " Dr. Luther 94

1746-1831 Collin, Pastor Nicholas 29,30

1815-1894 Cutler, William J 98

1818-1904 " Abram 99

1826-1896 " Waldo 99

1821-1915 Davis, George B 107

1826-1920 " Mrs. George B. (Marie Louise Greenman) 107

1835-1899 " Walter Scott 174

1818-1893 Dearborn, Mrs. Henry (Sarah Maria

Thurston) 208,209

1809-1879 De Chazal, Edmond, of Mauritius 214

1804-1814 Demerara (British Guiana), aspects of . . 10-12

1815-1899 Dike, Rev. Samuel F 112,178

1837-1912 Doliber, Thomas 90

-1878 Dorr, Rev. Susan M. H 109,170

1739-1798 DucHE, Rev. Jacob 31, 32

1767-1835 " Esther (Mrs. William Hill) 32

1820-1895 Dunham, Cornelius T 206

1823-1916 " Mrs. Cornelius T. (Ann B. Poyas) . . 285

1739-1817 Dupont, Chevalier Pierre Samuel, friend of

Franklin and Jefferson .... 280, 281
1743-1797 " Madame Nichol Le Dee de Ren-
court 280,281

1771-1834 " Eleuthere Irenee, of "E. L du Pont

Powder Co." 182, 282

1775-1828 " Madame Sophie Madeleine Dalmas . . 282

1798-1856 " Alfred Victor Philadelphus .... 182

1808-1903 " Mrs. Margaretta Lammot 182, 183, 280, 283

1827-1914 " Paulina 283

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

309

Early, Samuel Henry, of Virginia 300

1848-1907 " John Cabell 300

1846-1917 " Mrs. John Cabell (Mary W.) . . 300,301
1736-1817 Eckstein, John, sculptor to Frederick the

Great 22,24

Frederick E 22

Mary (Mrs. Alex. Kinmont) . . 22,23
Charlotte (Mrs. Daniel Thuun) . . 24

1815-1916 " Frances, of Glendale 24

1823-1915 Edgerly, Mrs. James (Sophronia Wilder) . 99, 100

1815-1896 Ellis, Dr. John 224, 225

1803-1882 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, pays tribute to Samp-
son Reed's book 82-84

Exiiics IN Business, ideal and perverted 16,28,91,
144, 168, 176, 177, 221, 251, 264, 277, 279, 304
1791-1869 Evans, Rev. Charles, Baptist missionary to

Sumatra 165-167

1692-1781 Fairfax, Thomas, sixth baron of Cam-
eron 289-291,304

1737-1802 " Rector Bryan, eighth baron 291, 292, 294, 295

1765-1849 " Thomas, ninth baron .... 289,293

Ferdinand 293

Wilson M. C 293, 294

1784-1849 " Anne (Mrs. Charles J. Catlett) . . . 294

1810-1884 Field, Rev. George .... 79, 156, 159, 160, 171
1804-1869 FoNERDEN, Dr. John, of Baltimore .... 40, 41
1831-1917 Foster, Mrs. Amos (Annie Seavey) .... 208

1817-1898 Fox, Rev. Jabez 158, 170

1706-1790 Fr.\nklin, Benjamin 3, 16-18, 44.

1752-1832 Freneau, Philip, writes poem on True Christian

Religion 20

1825-1912 Gates, Adelia, flower painter and Sahara

traveler 250-^256

1807-1864 George, Captain Paul 174-179

1803-1876 Gilpin, Chief-Justice Edward W., of

Delaware 183,217,218

1750-1814 Glen, James, New-Church torchbearer . 1-3, 7-16, 52

1833-1907 Gould, Rev. Edwin 100, 178

1799-1885 Greene, Simon H 277-279

1827-1909 " Henry 279

Greenway, Edward M 303

1884 Grolier Club of New York 190

1822-1909 Hale, Rev. Edward Everett, a good inter-
Church friend 209.210

1750-1839 Hargrove, Rev. John, of Baltimore . . . 40-46, 49
1820-1898 Harris, Dr. John T 198, 203, 206

310

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

Harvard a century ago 68-71

1804r-1864 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 190, 197, 198

1797-1878 Hayward, Rev. Tilly B 72, 73, 77, 86

1763-1804 Hill, Rev. William, donor of

Arcana to Harvard in 1794 . . 24, 32, 63, 70, 102

1748-1814 HiLLER, Major Joseph 52,57,198

1775-1841 " Margaret (Mrs. Samuel J. Pres-

cott) 53,54,57

1814-1870 " Rev. O. Prescott 54-56

1731-1812 HiNDMARSH, James, the first ordained New-Church

minister in the world, . (footnote) 40
1759-1835 " Rev. Robert, of England, son of

James 8, 9, 15, 26, 41, 45, 102

1831-1909 HiNKLEY, Rev. Willard Hall . . 44, 46, 186, 218, 299
Hitchcock, Thomas, of New York . . . 189, 196

1685-1760 HiTE, Baron Hans Joist 303, 304

1816-1887 " Hugh Holmes 304, 305

1828-1908 HiTZ, John, of Washington Volta Bureau, first

New-Church instructor to Helen Keller . . . 272

1781-1877 HoBART, Benjamin 98

1817-1897 " Lucy Lazelle (Mrs. William J. Cutler) , 98, 201

1820-1910 " Amelia (Mrs. William H. Dunbar) , 98, 99, 201

1794^1840 " Nathanael 91,92

1839-1916 Howard, Samuel F 206

1807-1894 HowELLS, Hon. William Cooper, New-
Church editor, and father of

novelist 265-267

1837-1920 " William Dean, comments on

Swedenborg 265,266

HoYT, J. K., of New York 189

1845-1916 Ingell, Mary Anna 208

1827-1911 Jackson, Mrs. William Francis .... 202, 203

1800-1881 James, John Hough 21

1743-1826 Jefferson, President Thomas . . . 3, 6, 44, 45, 299

1840-1913 Jewitt, Jesse 207

1799-1873 " John L 193, 194

1775-1847 "Johnny Appleseed," see Chapman.

1866-1916 Josselyn, Professor Freeman Marshall . . 235-238

1838-1913 Keene, Simeon H 206

1839-1911 Keith, William, gives paintings to Rev.

Joseph Worcester's Church 122, 123

1880- Keller, Helen, testifies to value of Sweden-
borg 271,272

1841-1918 Kennedy, Dr. George G 205,302

1799-1836 Kinmont, Alexander 22,23

1860-1909 Knapp, Adeline 261-265

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

311

1753-
1782-1877

1808-1903

1811-1905
1813-1874

1821-1881
1825-1888
1827-1907
1831-1910
1840-1887
1841-

1846-1915

1790-1881

-1851

1843-1916

1833-1865
1836-1905

1829-1908
1815-1905
1789-1862
1826-1914
1847-1906

1846-1905

1836-1917

1819-1904

1823-1903

1830-1910

1826-1908

1780-1860

1809

1817-1901

1819-1870

* Lammot, Daniel 32, 33, 40

" Daniel, Jr., Father of the New-Church

in Delaware . . 33, 40, 180, 181, 183, 187
" Margaretta (Mrs. Alfred du Pont)

33, 182, 183, 187, 188, 280-283
Mary (Mrs. Hounsfield) . . . 183, 188
Eleanora (Mrs. Edward W.

Gilpin) 183,188,218

Dan 185

La Motte, Major Robert 185, 186

Col. William A 185, 186

" Anna Rebecca 286

" Brigadier-General Charles Eugene , 186

Lathbury, Mary A., author of Church hymns,

and "A Song of Hope" 210

Little, Captain William McCarthy, U. S. N. . . 193
Long, Enoch, Illinois pioneer of 1819 .... 152

Lyon, Hon. Lucius 158, 159

MacDonald, Donald 204

Marriage, dual spiritual nature of man and

woman in 124, 125

1794, first New-Church union ... 27
" 1797, second New-Church union . . 27

Marston, Rev. George H 178, 271

Mason, Albert, Chief-Justice of Massachu-
setts 218-220

" William, pianist 196, 246-248

McClean, Abby 239-242

Meade, Bishop William, of Virginia 292, 294, 295, 304

Meday, Christian Henry 191

Mercer, Rev. Lewis P 186

MosBY, John Ware, Virginian 302

" Ella Floyd, Virginian 302, 303

Moses, Dr. Thomas 231-233

MouLTON, Maria, our "Sister Dora" . . 269, 271

Negendank, Dr. August 187, 223, 224

Nichols, Mrs. Henry H 85, 273-275

Noyes, Mrs. Horace P. (Eliza Withington) . 77,208

Ogden, Samuel Gouveneur, of New York . . . 287

" Louisa N. (Mrs. William Turner) ... 286

" Matilda (Mrs. William A. Wellman) . . 286

Anna Cora (Mrs. James Mowatt) . . . 286

* The two Daniels and their descendants to Dan inclusive spelled their
family name as one word; later members divided it.

312

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1823-1897 Ogden, Mary (Mrs. Cephas G. Thompson) . . 287

1829-1909 " Julia (Mrs. Joseph Kennedy

Smyth) 191,287,288

1699 Old Swedes' Church of Wilmington . . . . 2, 30

1700 Old Swedes' Church, Gloria Dei, of Philadelphia 29

1824^1913 Page, Anna L., kindergartner 242-244

1812-1907 Paine, Albert W., "Nestor of the Penob-
scot Bar" 37,220-222

1824-1895 " Timothy 0., studies and illustrates

Scripture Holy Houses .... 233, 235
1716-1783 Parsons, Moses, Orthodox parson . . 104, 105, 227
1750-1813 " Theophilus, Chief -Justice of Mas-
sachusetts 105,227

1797-1882 " Theophilus, Harvard

Dane Professor . . 71,104,105,227,228

1824-1880 " Emily Elizabeth, Civil War nurse 228, 229

1819-1886 Perry, Rev. John P 90, 91

1808-1897 Phelps, Francis 56,86,88,90,106

1818-1897 " Arthur 89,90

1837-1912 " James R 207

1595-1617 Pocahontas, the Indian Princess 298

1805-1873 Powers, Hiram, of Florence, Italy 22, 54, 85, 90, 193

1828-1885 Pyle, Mrs. William (Margaret Painter) ... 259

1853-1911 " Howard, and his art pupils . . . 259-261

1797-1854 Reed, Caleb 84,85,86,109

1800-1889 " Sampson 71, 81-84

1839-1917 " Helen 85,86

1841-1915 " Arthur . 85

1843-1895 Reeves, Thomas, blind musician 271

1792-1834 Richer, Edouard, Nantes, France 34

1799-1871 Riley, Edward C 191

1882-1914 Roeder, Elsie 260, 261

1812-1898 Ropes, Joseph 199

1833-1896 " George 87, 90, 199

1836-1901 Safford, Professor Truman H 225-227

1820- Schack, Otto Wilhelm Christian .... 192, 193

1685-1748 Schlatter, Paulus, of St. Gall, Switzerland 34, 35, 38

1716-1790 " Rev. Michael 35,38

1753-1787 " Gerhard Richard 35, 38

1784-1827 " William 36

1809-1892 " Elizabeth (Mrs. Theophilus

Chandler) 36,38

1836-1902 ScociA, Signor Loreta, of Florence .... 85, 273

1729-1796 Seabury, Bishop Samuel 7

1837-1915 Sewall, Rev. Frank . . .46, 99, 100, 119, 178, 199,

210, 232, 233, 250, 291, 299

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

313

1830-1912
1836-1918

1797-1881
1798-1892

1833-1911
1799-1869
1812-1884
1829-1909

1850-1864

-1892

1824-1902

1653-1735

1836-1917
1796-1863
1831-1893
1811-1863

1814^1896
1810-1888
1818-1903
1824^1903
1833-1912

1812-1879

1836-1905

1852-

1822-1916

1795-1864
1819-1907
1732-1799

1803-1889
1813-1903
1811-1886
1768-1843
1809-1882
1824-1906

SiLSBEE, Nathanael Devereaux 206

" Mrs. Nathanael Devereaux (Mary Stone

Hodges) 206

Silver, Rev. Abiel . . 23, 97, 117, 129-216, 302, 303

" Mrs. Abiel 129-216

Skiushushu, Chief Red Fox 146, 147

Smith, Charles G 291

Robert L 275, 277

Smyth, Joseph Kennedy 190, 191

" Mrs. Joseph Kennedy (Julia

Ogden) 191,287,288

Spiritism, phases of 162, 163

Strong, Rev. Horatio N 157, 158

Sullivan, Charles, of New York 189

SwEDBERG, Bishop Jesper, father of Emanuel

Swedenborg 1, 30

SwEDENBORG Documents 30, 230

Swift, William H 185, 187

Tafel, Dr. J. F. Immanuel, of Tubingen . . 55, 229

" Professor Rudolph L 30, 229-231

Thackeray, William M., mentions Lord Fairfax

of Greenway Court 290

Thielson, Hans, from Denmark 156

Jhompson, Cephas Giovanni 89, 97, 190

Henry G 189,190

Mrs. Henry G. (Louisa Barnard) 283-286

John A 206

Thuun, Daniel 24r-26

TiCKNOR, Mrs. William D. (Emeline Stani-

ford Hok) 95,96

Howard Malcolm 120,193

Tryon, Francis, and family of New York . . . 190
Van Dyke, Rev. Henry, pays tribute to John

Bigelow 259,261

Wagar, Mrs. Israel D. (Elizabeth Pyle), knew

"Johnny Appleseed" 50

Ware, Dr. John, Harvard, 1813 207

" Mrs. John (Mary G. Chandler) .... 207
Washington, George . . . 1-3, 31, 39, 40, 52, 265,

290, 291, 292, 293

Webb, George James 78, 81, 244-246

Webster, David L 100, 101

John G 101

Weeks, Rev. Holland 25, 153, 154

Wheaton, Charles A 207, 208

Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T 106

314

SKETCHES OF THE NEW CHURCH

1794^1861 WiLKiNS, John H 71, 96, 97

1758-1837 Worcester, Rev. Noah 67, 68

1795-1878 " Rev. Thomas . 22,52,64,68,69,70-80

86, 103, 107-111, 117, 171, 173
1822-1896 " Miriam (Mrs. S. F. Dike) . ; . . 112

1824^1911 " Benjamin 91,92,112-114

1831-1897 " Catherine (Mrs. Thomas

Thacher) 93,107,114

1834-1900 " Rev. John, 72. 109, 114-117, 169,205, 215

1836-1913 " Rev. Joseph . . 109, 117-126, 256, 262

1793-1844 " Rev. Samuel 102, 103

1793-1883 " Mrs. Samuel (Sarah Sargent) 103, 104

WoRCESTERS of the main HoUis stem:
1761-1834 Worcester, Jesse, father of nine sons . . 238, 239
1799-1879 " Oilman, fourth son of Jesse ... 238

1802-1841 " Rev. Henry A., sixth son . 34, 222, 238

1808-1893 " David, ninth son, and fifteenth

child 238,239

1842-1911 " Henry of Maiden 238

1844-1916 " Professor Sarah Alice .... 64, 238
1848-1910 " Judge Francis J., of New York 197, 238
184S-1914 " OeorgeW .239

Wright, Rev. John, historian of American Liturgies, 80
1845-1907 " Rev. Theodore F 115, 207

Yale students in 1784 5, 6

1762-1840 Young, Judge John 27-31, 41

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